M, 




-m 



/^'i 

^-6-^ 



Men of Progress 



Biographical Sketches and Portraits 



OF 



Leaders in Business and Professional Life 



IN THE 



^tatje 0f ilttoiTe %6Xm\a aud ^ramtteuc^ 'gX^nt^txons 



COMPILED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF 

RICHARD HERNDON 

EDITED BY 

ALFRED M. WILLIAMS and WILLIAM F. BLANDING 




-^v^^l-^' 



BOSTON 

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE 

1896 



Copyright, i8 



RICHARD HERNDON 




ALFRED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS, BOSTON, 



Fis 



aopy ^ 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



PART I. 



ALLEN, Edwin Robinson, Lieutenant-Governor 
of Rhode Island, was born in Windham, Conn., 
November 26, 1840, the son of Edwin and Ruth 
B. (Noyes) Allen. The earher members of the 
Allen family were residents of Windham county. 




E. R. ALLEN. 

Conn. Amos D. Allen, the grandfather of the 
subject of this biography, married Sarah Tracy, 
whose children were seven in number. Their son 
Edwin, a native of Windham county, deceased 
January 4, 1891, gave much attention to inventions 
of a practical character, and won some distinction 
in that line ; he married Ruth B., daughter of 
Joseph Noyes and F^lizabeth Babcock of Westerly, 
and their children are Edward Tracy of San Fran- 



cisco, Edwin Robinson of Hopkinton, and Charles 
Noyes of Willington, Conn. Governor Allen re- 
ceived his earliest instruction at the select and 
public schools of the town, completing his studies . 
at Eagleswood, N. J. In September 1856 he 
entered the store of his uncle, the late Charles 
Noyes, at Hopkinton, as clerk, and continued in 
that capacity until September 1862, when he en- 
tered the army as a private in the Seventh Regi- 
ment Rhode Island Infantry. He advanced in the 
regular line of promotion until his discharge and 
return in June 1865, as First Lieutenant in command 
of the company in which he Jirst enlisted. During 
this period he participated in some of the most 
eventful engagements of the war, including Fred- 
ericksburg, fall of Vicksburg and Jackson, Spottsyl- 
vania, Cold Harbor, Mechanicsville, Bethesda 
Church, Hatchers Run, and Petersburg. On re- 
ceiving his discharge he resumed his duties at the 
store, which he has owned and managed since 1879. 
Mr. Allen was in 1866 elected clerk of the town of 
Hopkinton, and still holds that ofifice. His con- 
ceded ability and integrity place him in confiden- 
tial relations with his townsmen. His knowledge 
of town affairs, acquired through years of experi- 
ence, and his efficiency in all matters coming be- 
fore probate courts, cause his advice to be fre- 
quently sought in the drafting of important docu- 
ments and in the transfer and settlement of estates. 
In politics he is a Republican. His political 
career commenced in 1889, when he represented 
the town of Hopkinton in the State Senate, and 
was thrice re-elected to that office. He was, April 
1894, elected Lieutenant-Governor, and by virtue of 
re-election in April 1895, is the present incumbent 
of that office. Mr. Allen was married, January 
1868, to Mary E., de 

Martha E. Babcock ;^^^^^^^^^^Bt£ two sons 
George E., born Au 
Allen, whose birth 




MEN OF PROGRESS. 



ARNOLD, John Nelson, artist and portrait 
painter, was born in Masonville, now Grosvenor 
Dale, Thompson, Conn., June 4, 1834, the son of 
Benjamin and Thirza (Whitford) Arnold. His 
father's family were of the Warwick, R. I., Arnolds, 
and he is a descendant in the seventh genera- 
tion from Roger Williams. His mother's family 
were from Sterling, Conn. His parents came to 
Providence in 1836. He received his early edu- 
cation in the public schools, and graduated from 
the Elm-stieet grammar school, Caleb Farnum 
master, in 1850. He was then apprenticed to 




JOHN N. ARNOLD^ 

the jewelry firm of Stone & Weaver to learn en- 
graving. He studied art by himself, as oppor- 
tunity offered, and at the expiration of his term of 
apprenticeship began to teach himself painting. In 
1856 he opened a studio in Providence and has 
followed the profession of portrait painting since. 
He never had any instruction in art, but after he 
had opened a studio, he received many valuable 
suggestions from James S. Lincoln, who tlien stood 
at the head of his profession in the city, and con- 
tinued to do so u ntil 3 'Ir. Lincoln's death ; Mr. 
never toQJ^^^^^bi^s, but was always kind 

and suggest im- 
Mise he has always 
rartistic instiiicl was 




developed very early, and at ten years of age he ex- 
ecuted a painting of a landscape bridge and water- 
fall. Among the portraits of prominent men he has 
painted there are, in the State House : Governor 
Francis (after Healy), Governors Anthony and Lip- 
pitt; at Brown University, President Sears, Judge 
Pitman, Gen. Varnum and Dr. Alvah Woods ; at the 
City Hall, Mayors Doyle, Clarke and Potter ; at the 
Public Library, Henry L. Kendall and John Wilson 
Smith ; at the Masonic Temple, Past Grand Master 
N. Van Slyck and E. L. Freeman ; at the Odd 
Fellows Hall, P. G. M. Ham and Anderson ; at the 
Rhode Island Historical Society, E. R. Young, 
Governor H . W. King and Hon. Thomas Davis ; at 
Warwick Town Hall, Hon. Enos Lapham, Bishop 
Clark, Christopher Robinson, Henry Steeres ; for 
the Old Men's Home, Amos Perry, Gov. John W. 
Davis and many others. He was Chairman of the 
School Committee of Johnston from 1892 to 1895. 
In politics he is a Democrat. He is a member of 
the Psychical Research Society and of the Royal 
Society of Good Fellows. He married, in 1 856, Miss 
Rose Potter of Johnston, who died in 1890; they 
had two children: Ernest F., who died in 1S75, 
aged seventeen, and Herbert Percy Arnold, who is 
now master mechanic of one of the Howland Mills 
in New Bedford. 



ANDREWS, Elisha Benjamin, President of 
Brown University, Providence, was born in Hins- 
dale, N. H., January 10, 1844, son of Erastus and 
Almira (Bartlett) Andrews. Both his father and 
grandfather were Baptist ministers, his grandfather 
Elisha being the founder of many churches in west- 
ern Massachusetts, and his father, Erastus, although 
never out of the ministry, being locally famous as a 
lecturer ; he was also a member from Franklin 
county for two terms in the Massachusetts House 
of Representatives and for one in the Senate. 
When Elisha Benjamin Andrews was six months 
old his parents removed to Montague, Franklin 
county, Mass., where he received his education at 
the district school and on the farm until 1858, 
when the family removed to Suffield, Conn., where 
he resided until 1861. At the age of seventeen he 
enlisted in the Fourth Connecticut Infantry for 
three years. Tliis regiment was soon transferred 
to the artillery service as the First Connecticut 
Heavy Artillery and became one of the finest vol- 
unteer regiments in the war. Mr. .Andrews received 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



promotion through various grades and was mustered 
out as a Second Lieutenant, October 30, 1864. 
Before the war he had partly fitted for college at 
Connecticut Literary Institute, Suffield ; after the 
war he attended two terms at Powers Institute, 
Bernardston, Mass., and a year at Wesleyan 
Academy, Wilbraham, Mass. He entered Brown 
University in 1866 and graduated in 1870. He 
graduated from Newton Theological Institution in 
1874 and was ordained a Baptist clergyman the 
same year. He was pastor of the First Baptist 
Church in Beverly, Mass., in 1874-75, and resigned 




Harrison one of the members of the International 
Monetary Conference at Brussels. He received 
the honorary degree of D. D. from Colby Univer- 
sity in 1884, and that of LL. D. from the Univer- 
sity of Nebraska the same year. President Andrews 
has published a number of important volumes as 
well as a large number of addresses, lectures and 
magazine articles. His books are, " Brief Institutes 
of Constitutional History, English and American," 
1886 ; " Brief Institutes of General History," 1887 ; 
"Institutes of Economics," 1889; "History, Pro- 
phecy and Gospel," 1891 ; "The duty of a Public 
Spirit," 1892; "Gospel from Two Testaments," 
edited, 1893 '> Droysen's "Outlines of the Principles 
of History," translation, 1893 ; " Eternal Words and 
Other Sermons," 1894; " Wealth and Moral Law," 
1894; "An honest Dollar," with seven other essays 
on Bimetallism, 1894; "History of the United 
States," two volumes, 1894, and " History of the 
United States in the Last Quarter Century," now in 
course of publication in Scribner's Magazine. 
He is a member of the Grand Army of the Re- 
public, the Loyal Legion, the Delta Upsilon Frater- 
nity, the Massachusetts MiHtary Historical Society 
and the Rhode Island Historical Society. In poli- 
tics he is an Independent Republican, always in- 
clined to a liberal interpretation of the constitution 
and believing in a positive foreign pohcy; is an 
ardent international bimetallist ; favors a low tariff 
as a general policy, but a high and even prohibitive 
tariff against foreign monoplies, and free trade, if 
necessary, as a defence against home monopolies. 
He married, November 25, 1870, Miss Ella Anna 
Allen ; they have one son : Guy Ashton, born July 
18, 1873. 



E. B. ANDREWS. 



to accept the Presidency of Denison University, in 
Ohio, which post he held until 1879. He then re- 
signed to accept the Professorship of Homiletics 
and Pastoral Theology in Newton Theological In- 
stitution, which he held until 1882, when he went 
to Germany to study history and political economy 
in the universities of Berlin and Munich. In 1882, 
before going to Europe, he had been appointed 
Professor of History and Political Economy in Brown 
University, and he filled that chair until 1888, when 
he accepted the Professorship of Political Itconomy 
and Finance in Cornell University. In 1889 he was 
elected President of Brown University, also occu- 
pying the Chair of Moral and Intellectual Philos- 
phy. In 1892 he was appointed by President 



BAILEY, George Cross, physician and surgeon, 
was born in Northampton, England, October 20, 
1842, son of Samuel and Mary (Cross) Bailey. He 
was brought by his parents to America when three 
years of age. They settled in Unadilla, Otsego 
county. New York, where he received as complete 
an education as the school facilities of that place 
permitted. He commenced the study of medicine 
at the age of seventeen with Dr. Joseph Sweet of 
Unadilla and Dr. George W. Avery of Norwich, 
New York. In 1863 he enlisted in the Eighty-ninth 
Regiment New York Volmiteers, and passed an ex- 
amination as hospital sy^^^rd. He acted as regi- 
mental surgeon until ^/close of the war, and was 
with his regiment at tft/ surrender of General Lee 




MEN OF PROGRESS. 



at Appomattox. In 1865 he entered the Department 
of Medicine of the University of New York, and in 
1866 the Long Island College Hospital. He com- 
menced the practice of medicine in Andover, Ash- 




his early business training with the extensive firm of 
Mead, Lacy & Co., New York, with whom he was 
shipping clerk from 1864 to 1868; at the close of 
the war the firm ranked second or third in the country 
as wholesale grocers and government contractors. 
During the civil war he was First Lieutenant in Com- 
pany D First Regiment Rhode Island Militia, in 
1863. In June 1868 he went West on account of his 
health, and settled in Kansas. Owing to two visita- 
tions of grasshoppers, drought and floods, followed 
by the financial panic of 1873, the loss of his wife 
after an illness of five days, and the destruction of 
his house by fire, he abandoned Kansas and returned 
to the East. He determined to adopt medicine 
as his profession, and graduated from the Medical 
School of the University of New York, March 20, 
1879. I"^ ^879 ^^ settled in Centerdale, R. I., 
where he has secured a large pi'actice. He is Visit- 
ing Physician of the Rhode Island Homoeopathic 
Hospital and a member of the Board of Trustees. 
He was elected President of the Board of Health of 
the town of Johnston in 1892, and is Medical Ex- 
aminer for the Fourth District of Providence County. 



GEO, C, BAILEY. 

tabula county, Ohio. He subsequently returned to 
Delaware county, near his old home, continuing the 
practice of his profession there until 1879, when he 
removed to Westerly, R. I., where he has since re- 
mained in successful and remunerative practice. 
He is a member of Franklin Lodge, No. 20, A. F. 
and A. M. ; Palmer Chapter, No. 28, Royal Arch 
Masons ; Narragansett Commandery,No. 2 7,Knights 
Templar, and Hella Temple N. M. S., Texas. He 
married, April 6, 1867, Miss Lavantia Case; they 
have one daughter, Mary Ada Bailey. 



BARNARD, Charles Alonzo, homoeopathic phy- 
sician, was born in Milledgeville, Ga., August 16, 
1843, son of William H. and Nancy C. (Perry) Bar- 
nard. He is descended from Peregrine White, the 
first white child born in New England. His family 
is connected with the Paine and Aldrich families, of 
English descent, both of vvhich have coats of arms. 
He received his early educ^-j^^n in the public schools 
of Providence, and gradual^/ Mrom the scientific de- 
partment of the high schoc^ 1864. He received 




CHAS. A. BARNARD. 



compnsmg 

Smith field. 



the towns of North Providence and 
He was President of the Medico- Legal 

Society for two years, from July 1891 to July 1893. 

He was President of the Rhode Island Homoeopathic 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Society for three years, from January 1890 to Janu- 
ary 1893, the longest term ever held by any indi- 
vidual. He is a member of the American Institute 
of Homoeopathy, and of the New York Medico- Legal 
Society. He is a charter member of Narragansett 
Lodge, A. O. U. W., and was its first medical 
examiner. Dr. Barnard has engaged, as a recrea- 
tion, in breeding blooded horses, and he has some 
of the most highly bred horses in the country. He 
has taken no part in politics and has always refused 
public ofifice. He joined the church at the age of 
twenty-one and has always been an ardent member 
of some church ; he has selected the church located 
where he has lived, seeking to help the people of 
his own community, and caring more for the sub- 
stance than the form of his own religion. He has 
been trustee and treasurer of the Free Baptist 
Church of Johnston, and member of the Executive 
Board of the Rhode Island Free Baptist Associa- 
tion, and was twice elected President of the Rhode 
Island Free Baptist Social Union. He married, 
November 29, 1866, Matilda P., widow of Rev. Rob- 
ert Roberts of Brooklyn, who died September 13, 
1875; they had children: William H. and Ethel- 
wyn N. September 6, 188 r, he married Miss Eliz- 
abeth T. Luther, daughter of Henry G. Luther of 
Providence ; they had children : Luther, Edith, 
Mary Brownell and Clinton Barnard ; she died 
December 31, 1889. On June 9, 1892, he was 
again married, to Adelaide R. Movvry, daughter of 
the late John A Mowry of Smithfield, R. I. 



BARROWS, Edwin, President of Insurance 
Companies, was born in Norton, Mass., January 24, 
1834, son of Albert and Harriet (Ide) Barrows. 
He received his early education in the common 
schools and at Peirce Academy, Middleboro, Mass. 
He entered Yale College and graduated in the class 
of 1857. After leaving college he taught a private 
school in Norton, and was a bookkeeper for several 
years for Taylor, Symonds & Co., wholesale dry- 
goods, of Providence. Under President Lincoln's 
call for nine-months' men he enlisted as a private 
in the Fourth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, 
and on going into Camp Joe Hooker, at Middle- 
boro, was appointed Quartermaster-Sergeant. He 
served under Gen. Banks in Louisiana until honor- 
ably discharged after about a year's service. In 
December 1868, he was elected Secretary and 
Treasurer of the Firemen's Mutual Insurance Com- 
pany, and of the Union Mutual Fire Insurance 



Company. In 1880, he was elected President and 
Treasurer of the two companies, and has held those 
offices since that time. The business has steadily 
increased from year to year until at the present 
time more than eighty million dollars' worth of 
property is protected by the policies of the two 
companies. He is a Director of the First National 
Bank, Providence, and Treasurer of The Rhode 




EDWIN BARROWS. 

Island Bible Society. He has not taken any part in 
public affairs, but in politics he is a Republican. 
He married, August 20, 1868, Miss Harriet E. 
Armington, daughter of Dr. George B. Armington, 
of Pittsford, Vt; they have children: Edwin 
Armington, Mary Tomlinson, Anne Ide and Albert 
Armington Barrows. 



BROWN, Daniel Russell, Governor of Rhode 
Island 1892-95, was born in Bolton, Conn., March 
28, 1848, the son of Arba Harrison and Harriet 
Marilla (Dart) Brown. His early years were spent 
on his father's farm and in attendance at the dis- 
trict school. He received his final school education 
at an academy at Manchester, Conn., and in school 
at Hartford. After graduation he entered the em- 
ploy of a hardware me/«thant in Rockville, Conn., 
and two years later lyecame head salesman of a 



6 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



large hardware 



establishment in Hartford. In 
1870 he removed to Providence where he took 
charge of the mill-supply store of Cyrus White. 
He soon formed a partnership with William Butler 





D, RUSSELL BROWN. 

& Son, who purchased Mr. White's business and 
formed the firm of Butler, Brown & Company. In 
1877, on the demise of Mr. Butler, Mr. Brown 
formed the firm of Brown Bros. & Co., consisting 
of himself, his brother Col. H. Martin Brown, and 
Charles H. Child, which is now the largest mill- 
supply establishment in the country. His business 
relations include banking and other financial enter- 
prises, and he is Vice-President of the City Savings 
Bank, President of the Old Colony Co-operative 
Bank, and holds other offices of business importance 
and responsibility. He early took an interest in mu- 
nicipal and state affairs, and was elected to the 
Common Council of Providence in 1880, serving 
for four years. He declined a nomination for 
Mayor in 1886. In 1888 he was Presidential 
Elector on the Republican ticket. In 1892 he 
was elected Governor of Rhode Island, receiving a 
majority of the votes, the first time any candidate 
had done so since the extension of the franchise. 
He was re-nominated in 1893 and held over on 
account of dispute betwe>}ji the two houses of the 
General Agsembly in rega\l to the counting of the 



votes. In 1894 he again received the nomination 
of the Republican party and was elected by a 
plurality of over sixty-five hundred, receiving the 
largest vote ever cast for a Governor of Rhode 
Island. He is a member of the Young Men's 
Christian Association, the Art, Athletic, Advance, 
Talma, West Side, Pomham and Providence Press 
clubs, also of the Board of Trade, Business Men's 
Association, Rhode Island Historical Society, Sons 
of American Revolution, Rhode Island Art In- 
stitute, President of the Bethany Home, and 
member of the Norfolk Club, Boston, and many 
other social and fraternal organizations. He stands 
high in the rank of the Masonic order and has 
served in its most important offices. He married 
Miss Isabel Barrows, October 14, 1874; they have 
three children : Milton Barrows, Isabel Russell and 
Hope Caroline Brown. 



BROWN, Col. H. Martin, merchant and manu- 
facturer. Providence, was born in Bolton, Conn., 
April 28, 1850, son of Arba Harrison and Harriet 




H. MARTIN BROWN. 



(Dart) Brown. He comes of Revolutionary ances- 
try and his father was a prosperous farmer in Bolton 
and afterwards in Manchester, Conn. He received 
his early education in the public schools of Bolton 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



and at the high school in Rockville, Conn. At the 
age of sixteen he entered the drygoods house of the 
Hon. E. Steven Henry of Rockville, Conn., and five 
years later was admitted as a partner. In December 
1887, the firm of Henry & Brown was dissolved by 
mutual consent. January i, 1888, he entered into 
partnership with his brother, ex-Governor D. Russell 
Brown, and Charles H. Child under the firm name 
of Brown Brothers & Co., which does a large and 
prosperous business in mill supplies. Mr. Brown is 
a Director in the National Ring Traveler Company, 
the Equitable Fire and Marine Insurance Company, 
of Providence, and the Union Belt Company of 
Fall River, Mass. He was elected a member of 
the City Council from the Ninth Ward in 1890. 
He was appointed Colonel and Chief of Staff by 
Governor Brown and served in that capacity from 
1892 to 1895. He is a member of the Adolphoi 
Lodge, A. F. & A. M., St. John's Commandery, 
Rhode Island Society of the Sons of the American 
Revolution, also the Hope, Pomham, West Side and 
Congregational clubs, and the Providence Athletic 
Association In politics he is a Republican. He 
married, February 9, 1875, Miss Annie W., daughter 
of G. L. North of Rockville, Conn ; they have two 
children : Marion N. and A. Helen Brown. 



member of the Rhode Island Historical Society 
Sons of the American Revolution, the Philadel- 
phia Society for University Extension, and a mem- 
ber of the Board of Trustees of Hartford Theological 



BARSTOW, George Eames, manufacturer, was 
born in Providence, November 19, 1849, son of Amos 
Chafee and Emeline Mumford (Eames) Barstow. 
The Barstow family came from the West Riding of 
Yorkshire, England, and settled in Hanover, Mass., 
in 1636. His father, Amos C. Barstow, was one of 
the most prominent men in the city, in business, 
religious and public affairs, an ex-Mayor, and the 
holder of many important positions of trust. He 
received his education in the public schools and in 
Mowry & Goff's Classical School. He began his 
business career at seventeen years of age, acquiring 
a thorough knowledge of textile manufacturing, and 
receiving a complete training in business affairs. 
Besides his successful business career, he has taken 
an active part in municipal, state and church 
affairs, and in public education. He was fourteen 
years a member of the School Committee, and for 
one year its President. He was for four years a 
member of the Common Council, and was elected a 
Representative in the General Assembly in 1894-95, 
and 1895-96. He took an active part in the forma- 
tion of the Fourth Ward Republican Club, and for 
the past four years has been its President. He is a 




GEO. E. BARSTOW. 

Seminary. He married, October 19, 187 1, Miss 
Drew Symonds ; they have nine children : Caroline 
Hartwell, George Eames, Jr., Herbert Symonds, 
Helen Louise, Harold Carleton, Marguerite, Paris, 
Putnam and Donald Barstow. 



BROWN, Edward Alvin, marketman and dairy 
farmer, was born in Little Compton, R. I., October 
22, 1859, son of John C. G. and Maria M. 
(Brownell) Brown. He is a descendant of Elizabeth 
Alden, the first white woman born in New England, 
the daughter of John Alden and Priscilla Mullens. 
He received his early education in the pubHc schools 
of his native town and at the Friends' School of 
Providence. He then took a course at Bryant & 
Stratton's Business College, Providence. His early 
business career was in connection with his father's 
firm, John C. G. Brown & Co., of Little Compton. 
On January i, 1885, he purchased the business of 
Benjamin Bateman of Newport, and has continued it 
since, living in Newport 'for two years, and then re- 
moving to MicklJetowyf where he is now carrying on. 



8 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



in connection with the market business, the largest 
dairy and poultry farm on the island. He has been 
Senator in the General Assembly from Middletown 
since 1892, and is a member of the RepubHcan 




E. A, BKOWN. 

State Central Committee. He has been a Director 
in the National Exchange Bank and of the Island 
Savings Bank of Newport since 1891, and he is a 
member of the Newport Business Men's Association. 
He married, May 28, 1885, Miss Mabel Tompkins; 
they have four children : Eugene Irving, Louise, 
Lawrence Edward and Pauline Brown. 



BUCKLIN, Edward Carrington, Treasurer of 
the Harris Manufacturing Company, Woonsocket, 
was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., August 7, 1850, of 
Thomas P. and Eliza (Comstock) Bucklin. He is 
a great-grandson of Captain Thomas Bucklin, who 
answered the alarm sounded on the 19th of April 
1775, and was one of the "Minute Men" of the 
war of the Revolution. He received his education 
at the Lyon's grammar school, Providence, boarding 
school in Vermont, and Mowry & Goff' s Classical 
School of Providence. After graduation he lived 
for two years on the frontier of Colorado, where he 
was a member of the Governor's Guard in Denver 
in 1871, For one and aJbalf years he was in a 



commission house in New York, and received a 
practical training in a cotton mill. In 1878 he 
was elected Treasurer of the Arkwright Manufact- 
uring Company, in 1877 Treasurer of the Harris 
Manufacturing Company, and in 1882 Treasurer of 
the Interlaken Mills. He is now Treasurer of the 
Harris Manufacturing Company and the Interlaken 
Mills, the latter being a reorganization of the Ark- 
wright Manufacturing Company. He is Vice-Pres- 
ident of the Providence Land and Wharf Company, 
and a Director of the National Bank of North 
America, the Providence Mutual Fire Insurance 
Company and the Mercantile Mutual Fire Insurance 
Company. He is a member of the Providence 
Athletic Association, of the Providence Art Club, 




E. C. BUCKLIN. 

and of the New England Cotton Manufacturers' 
Association. He married, February 4, 1874, Miss 
Jessie Howard, daughter of Ex-Governor Henry 
Howard ; they have had six children : Henry Howard 
(deceased), Edward Carrington, Jr. (deceased), 
Harris Howard, Thomas Peck, Janet and Dorothy 
Bucklin. 



BALLOU, Hon. Latimer Whipit.k, LL. D., Woon- 
socket, was born in Cumberland, R.I. .March i, 18 12, 
son of Levi and Hepzibah (Metcalf) Ballon. He 
is a member of the numerous antl long distinguished 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



family of Ballous that are descended from Maturin 
Ballou, who was one of the earliest emigrants to 
America from England, and who in 1745 was a co- 
proprietor of the Providence Plantations in the 
Colony of Rhode Island. Latimer W. Ballou at- 
tended the district schools, and at the age of 
sixteen was given by his father the option of a 
collegiate education or a mechanical trade. He 
chose the latter and became apprentice to a 
printing firm in Cambridge, Mass., near Harvard 
University, in which his maternal uncle, Eliab 
Metcalf, was a partner. After serving his ap- 
prenticeship, his next two years were spent as assis- 
tant foreman in the University printing office, Cam- 
bridge, following which he united in partnership 
with two others and started the Cambridge Press 
with which he remained seven years. At this time 
impaired health admonished him to leave the 
printing business, and in 1842 he entered into 
mercantile partnership with his brother-in-law, 
WiUiam O. Bisbee, at Woonsocket, R. I. Here a 
few years' experience convinced him that mer- 
chandise was not his element, and in 1850 he 
became Cashier of the Woonsocket Falls Bank, 
and Treasurer of the Woonsocket Institution for 
Savings, where he proved to be the right man in 
the right place, having retained these responsible 
positions ever since, and to the great prosperity of 
both institutions. In politics, as in finance, his 
life has been a useful and successful one. Be- 
longing to the progressive wing of the old Whig 
party, he naturally advanced into the Republican 
ranks, and was a prudent counsellor, eloquent 
speaker and popular leader. He was a Presidential 
Elector in i860, Delegate to the Republican Na- 
tional Convention of 1872, and Representative in 
Congress three successive terms, from 1875 to 
1 88 1. All these offices he filled with honor to 
himself, satisfaction to his constituents and benefit 
to his country. He was a model Congressman, 
not only as a legislator, but as an exemplary 
moralist, being an active Vice-President of the 
Congressional Temperance Society, and in other 
ways an earnest worker and a shining example. 
In all matters relating to the education of youth, 
moral and philanthropic reforms, and the common 
charities of the general community, Latimer W. 
Ballou is a practical devotee to human welfare. 
In religion he is a Universalist, and an emphatic 
worker and upbuilder of his denomination and all 
its internal institutions. He has been a model 
Sunday School teacher, first in Cambridge, and 



later in Woonsocket where he has led the school 
of the Universalist Society as Superintendent with 
great success for over fifty years. In the colleges, 
academies, conventions, conferences and various 
organizations of the denomination, he has held and 
adorned many dignified offices, to the pleasure 
and profit of all concerned. Mr. Ballou was 
married, October 20, 1836, to Miss Sarah A. Hun- 
newell of Cambridge, Mass. They had four 
children: Mary Frances, born August 3, 1837; 




L. W. BALLOU. 

Sarah Jane, born March 20, 1839; Marie Louise, 
born August 15, 1846, and Henry Latimer Ballou, 
born October 14, 1841, now Assistant Treasurer 
of the Woonsocket Institution for Savings, and 
Treasurer and Trustee of several societies, estates 
and institutions. 



BOWEN, William Henry, M. D., Providence, 
was born in Scituate, R. I., April 18, 1840, son of 
Lyman and Phebe Ann (Burgess) Bowen. His 
father, born in the same town July 16, 18 15, still 
survives ; his mother, who was born in Johnston, R. I., 
May 8, 1822, died August 29, 1856. The Bowen 
ancestors in America were of English origin and 
date back to 1640, when Richard and Grififith Bowen 
came to this country from Glamorganshire, Wales, 
and settled, the former in Rehoboth, and the latter 
in Weymouth, Mass. ' Froni these progenitors the 



lO 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Bovven families now living in Rhode Island are 
probably descended. William Henry is a direct 
descendant of Richard Bovven, who lived and died 
in Rehoboth. He was born and reared on a farm 
in the western part of the town of Scituate, the eldest 
of eight children, three of whom were girls. At an 
early age he was put to work on the farm, and sent 
to school only winters. Despite these disadvantages 
he early developed a taste for books and study, and 
when not more than twelve years old he had decided 
to become a doctor. But the family was large and 
money was scarce, and not much help could be 




Dartmouth College, graduating from that institution 
as Doctor of Medicine, October 30, 1863, at that 
time being but twenty-three years of age. He im- 
mediately commenced practice in the village of 
Clayville, and after remaining there four years 
removed to Rockland in the town of Scituate, where 
he lived for twenty-one years. After practising in 
the country twenty-five years, he removed in No- 
vember 1888 to the city of Providence, where he is 
now actively engaged in an extensive medical prac- 
tice. Dr. Bowen is a member of the Providence 
Medical Association and the Rhode Island Medical 
Society. He is a Mason and a member of St. John's 
Commandery Knights Templar, and has been Master 
of Hamilton Lodge and High Priest of Scituate 
Royal Arch Chapter. In politics he has always been 
an Independent ; but notwithstanding his indepen- 
dence, he was elected to the School Committee of 
the town of Scituate for ten successive years, and was 
nine years Superintendent of Schools. Dr. Bowen 
is quiet and reserved in manner, but decided and 
fearless when assailed, and always prompt, active, 
straightforward and self-reliant. He labors hard to 
keep abreast with the best scientific thought and the 
improvement of the times, and whatever measure of 
success in life he may have achieved has been due 
to his own exertion, perseverance and hard work. 
He was married, February 22, [865, to Miss Phebe 
Smith Aldrich, daughter of Arthur Fenner Aldrich, 
who for many years was a leading citizen of Scituate ; 
two daughters and five sons were born to this union, 
four of whom are living : Cora Aldrich, Harry Lyman, 
William Henry and Frank Aldrich Bowen. 



WM, H. BOWEN. 

expected from his father; so at the age of fourteen 
he went to work for a neighboring farmer, in order 
to earn money for his education. As soon as he 
had saved enough for the purpose, he entered Smith- 
ville Seminary, walking daily to and from the school, 
a distance of four miles. In this way, by working 
out, and after a time by teaching school, he was able 
in five years, through hard work, rigid economy and 
close application, to prepare for college, and also to 
take extra courses in chemistry and the French lan- 
guage. Three of the five years were spent at East 
Greenwich Academy. At the age of nineteen he 
entered the office of Dr. Charles H.Fisher, in North 
Scituate, and commenced the study of medicine. 
After the necessary preliminary study he entered 



BUFFUM, William Potter, civil engineer, New- 
port, was born in Middletown, R. I., August 29, 
1858, son of Thomas B. and Lydia R. (Potter; 
Buffum. He is descended from (Quaker ancestry; 
his father, Thomas B. Buffum, his grandfather David 
Buffum, and his great grandfather David Buffum, 
were prominent in the Newport branch of the de- 
nomination ; the first of the name in the country, 
Robert Buffum, who came to Salem, Mass , about 
1634, was a Quaker, and the majority of the family 
have since belonged to that sect. He received his 
early education in private schools at Newport and 
at the Friends' School in Providence, from which 
he graduated in 1875. He then entered Brown 
University and graduated in the class of 1S79. He 
devoted himself to farming in Middletown until 
1886, when he entered the office of J. P. Cotton, 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



II 



civil engineer, at Newport, and remained with him 
for six years and a half. Since August 1892, he has 
carried on the business of civil engineering inde- 
pendently. He was elected a Representative from 
Newport in the Rhode Island General Assembly in 




W. p. BUFFUM. 

1894 and re-elected in 1895, and has been a mem- 
ber of the Board of Reference of the Charity Or- 
ganization of Newport since 1887. He is a mem- 
ber of the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity, Ninigret 
Lodge, and the Newport Business Men's Association. 
He married, April 5, 1883, Miss Joanna Sophia 
Kimber of Germantown, Pa. ; they have three chil- 
dren : Margaret, William P., Jr., and Marnuiduke 
Cope Euffum 

BARNEY, Walier Hammond, attorney-at-law, 
Providence, was born in Providence, September 20, 
1855, ^^^ son of Josiah K. and Susan H. (Ham- 
mond) Barney. He is descended on both sides 
from old Massachusetts families, the Barneys, Pecks, 
Hammonds and Browns, who were distinguished in 
the Revolutionary and Colonial services. He is 
also connected on both sides with Commodore 
Oliver H. Perry. He received his early education 
in the public schools of Providence and Pawtucket, 
R. I., and Silver City, Nevada, and attended Mowry 
& Goff's Classical School in Providence from 1868 



to 1872, graduating with the valedictory. He grad- 
uated from Brown University in the class of 1876 
with the degree of A. B., receiving that of A. M. in 
1879; he was the valedictorian of his class. He 
studied law in the office of Colwell & Colt (Hon. 
Francis Colwell, now City Solicitor, and Hon. 
Le Baron B. Colt, now Judge of the United States 
Circuit Court of Appeals), and was admitted to the 
Rhode Island bar in February 1879. He practiced 
by himself from 1879 to 1882, and then was associ- 
ated with his old instructor, Hon. Francis Colwell, 
until 1893, since which time he has been by him- 
self. His principal practice is in equity and cor- 
poration law. He has taken an active interest in 
public affairs. He was a member of the General 
Assembly in 1889-90; has been a member of the 
School Committee from 1889 to the present time, 
and its President since 1890 ; and was a member of 
the Common Council in 1891-92-93 and '95. He 
is a member of the Providence Athletic Association, 
the Elmwood and Pomham clubs, the Providence 
Whist Club and the Narragansett Whist Club, of 




W. H. BARNEY. 

which latter he is the President. He was one of 
the organizers of the American Whist League, and 
was its Secretary from its origin, in 1891, to the 
present year, when he was elected Vice-President. 
He has been Presidf^tit of the New England Whist 



12 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Association since its organization. In politics he is 
a Republican He married, June i, 1882, Miss 
Sarah Lydia, daughter of Ezra I. Walker ; they have 
one child : Walter H., Jr. 



BARKER, William, Dental Surgeon, Providence, 
was born in Springfield, Mass., August 5, 1842, son 
of William S. and Hersey (Knowlton) Barker. 
His father was a son of Deacon Nathan Barker, 
who was a soldier in the Revolutionary war ; his 
mother was a daughter of Nathan Knowlton of 




WILLIAM BARKER. 

Wilbraham, Mass. All his grandparents moved to 
Massachusetts from Ashford, Conn., and settled in 
adjoining^towns. Their ancestors were among the 
earliest settlers of New England, and were all of 
English lineage. His father died when he was but 
twelve years of age, leaving his mother with six 
children, and a heavy debt on the farm, too heavy 
to permit her to liquidate it. The family were 
necessarily scattered and he found a home with a 
Wilbraham farmer, where he had a school privilege 
of three months in the year, with a three-mile walk 
to attend it. He worked on a farm until 1S59, 
attending the district schools, and was for a short 
time at the Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham. He 
has obtained the greater part of his education by 
private study, reading the best literature he could 



obtain, studying nights and Sundays, and literally 
" burning the midnight oil." The breaking out of 
the war ot the Rebellion found him in New York 
engaged in mercantile pursuits. On April ig, 1861, 
he entered the Seventy-first Regiment N. Y. S. M., 
tor three months, gomg to Annapolis by steamer, 
making with the First Rhode Island the somewhat 
famous " first march of the war" from Annapolis to 
Annapolis Junction — " Only Nine Miles to the 
Junction." Just previous to the advance of the 
troops into Virginia, which led to the first battle of 
Bull Run, he and some hundreds of others were 
discharged by reason of disability, at which he was 
much mortified, being eager to take part in the 
battle. He again engaged in mercantile pursuits 
until August 1862, when he enlisted in the First 
Massachusetts Cavalry for three years or during the 
war, and served in the Army of the Potomac most 
of the time as orderly and bugler, participating in 
nearly all the engagements of his term of service. 
He then engaged in various occupations, the mer- 
cantile, mechanical and insurance business occupy- 
ing him at different times. He spent about two 
years in Kansas and Minnesota, drifting back to 
New England and into the practice of dentistry in 
Suffield, Conn., in 1875, remaining there, however, 
but a short time. From there he went to Browns- 
ville, Texas, and Matamoras, Mexico, where he re- 
mained only long enough to convince himself that 
New England was the best place for him. He first 
opened an office in this state in East Greenwich, 
and in 1876 removed to Providence. He pursued 
a course of study in the Boston Dental College, 
securing his degree of D. D. S. in 1880. He 
was elected Professor of Operative Dentistry at 
the Boston Dental College in 1886, occupying the 
chair for four years, when he resigned. He is a 
member of the Rhode Island Dental Society and 
was one of its first Presidents ; of the New England 
Dental Society and one of its Presidents ; of the 
American Academy of Dental Science, and an ex- 
member of the American Dental Association and 
the Connecticut Valley Dental Society. He is 
President of the Rhode Island Single Tax League, 
an office to which he attaches more honor than any 
he has ever held. He is a member of the Provi- 
dence Athletic Association, the Grand Army of the 
Republic and various other army organizations. In 
1866 he married Miss Jane E. Mellows of Spring- 
field, Mass., who died in 1872, leaving one daugh- 
ter : Beatrice J. In 1878, he married Miss Charlotte 
B. Farnum of Providence. 




MEN OF PROGRESS. 



13 



BARSTOW, Amos Chafee, iron founder, Provi- 
dence, was born in Providence, November 2, 1848, 
the son of Amos Chafee and Emeline Mumford 
(Eames) Barstow. He is a descendant of William 
Barstow, who came from Yorkshire, England, and 
settled in Massachusetts in 1636. His grandfather, 
Nathaniel Barstow, came from Hanover to Provi- 
dence early in life, and his father, Hon. Amos C. 
Barstow, was born in Providence in 1813, and was 
for many years identified with the growth of his 
native city, having been one of the early Mayors of 
Providence, and prominent in temperance, in poli- 




AMOS C. BARSTOW. 

tics and in religious work. Mr. Barstow received 
his early education in the public grammar schools, 
and in Ladd & Mowry's, afterwards Mowry & Goff' s 
English and Classical High School. He lacked 
about a year of completing preparation for college, 
when on account of illness a college course was 
abandoned, and after two years' training in office 
work he made a vovage to California, before the 
completion of the first through railroad, spending a 
few months in travel, after which his business life 
was begun in earnest. He began his business 
career in February 1866, with the Barstow Stove 
Company, iron founders. This business had been 
started by his father in 1836 and was incorporated 
in 1859. He was elected Treasurer in 1869, and 
has since continued in that office, having been man- 



ager of the business the greater part of the time. 
He was elected President in February 1895, suc- 
ceeding his father in this office a few months after 
the latter's death, which occurred in September 
1894. He served as a Director in the Commercial 
National Bank of Providence for twelve years, com- 
mencing January 6, 1879, representing a family in- 
terest on his wife's side. (Mrs. Barstow's grand- 
father, Nathan Mason, had been for many years a 
Director in this bank.) He has been a Director of 
the City National Bank of Providence since January 
9, 1877, and in the Slater Cotton Company of Paw- 
tucket since 1889. He was Vice-President of the 
Providence & Springfield Railroad several years and 
arranged the sale of that property to the New York & 
New England Railroad in 1890, and has been con- 
nected with other railroad corporations. In 1873 
and 1874 he was a Colonel on Governor Howard's 
personal staff. He was elected a Representative to 
the General Assembly on the Republican ticket in 
1888, and shared in the general defeat of that ticket 
the two succeeding years. On returning from a 
journey in France, Italy, Austria and Germany, he 
married, June 27, 1876, Miss Grace Mason Palmer, 
daughter of the late John Barstow Palmer, a well- 
known and successful manufacturing jeweler of 
Providence, whose mother was a Barstow from a 
Connecticut family, but the relationship is too re- 
mote to trace ; they have had four children : Amos 
Chafee, Jr., who died in June 1879, aged two years, 
Mary Mason, John Palmer and Grace Emeline 
Barstow. 

BALT.OU, Barton Allan, manufacturing jeweler, 
Providence, was born in Cumberland, R. I., October 
25, 1835, son of Barton and Deborah Catherine 
(Rathbone) Ballou. He is descended in the sixth 
generation from Maturin Ballou, one of the early 
settlers of Providence and a contemporary of Roger 
Williams. His father. Barton Ballou, graduated 
from Brown University in the class of 181 3 ; he was 
the son of Levi Ballou, Esq., of Cumberland, who 
was a prominent citizen of his town and state. His 
maternal grandparents were Abraham Borden 
Rathbone and Waity Thomas of ^\'ickford, R. I. 
His early education was obtained in the public 
schools of his native town. His father died before 
he had completed his ninth year, leaving the widow 
and children to depend upon their own resources. 
At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to learn 
the jewelers' trade in Providence. During the long 
depression in the jewelry business which followed 



14 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



the panic of 1857, he became for a few years a 
resident of New Hampshire. He enlisted in the 
army, and was largely influential in organizing a 
military company that formed a part of the Six- 
teenth Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers. He 
was elected Lieutenant, and served with his regi- 
ment under the command of General Banks in the 
Department of the Gulf. He began his career as a 
manufacturing jeweler early in 1878, and in a few 
months formed with his brother-in-law, the late 
John J. Fry, the firm since known as B. A. Ballou & 
Co., which acquired and has maintained a high rep- 




B. A. BALLOU. 

utation in the business. He is an official member 
of the National Free Religious Association and an 
active member of the Free Religious Society of 
Providence, always on the executive committee and 
at one time its president. He is a member and 
supporter of the Union for Christian work, a Director 
of the Manufacturing Jewelers' Board of Trade, a 
member of the Manufacturing Jewelers' Association, 
the Advance Club, and other organizations based 
on the idea of the common good. In politics he is 
a Republican, but not sufficiently partisan to engage 
in active political work. He married, May 7, 1858, 
Miss Delia A. Wesley, who died without children. He 
was again married, November 28, 1867, to Miss Mary 
Rathbone Kelley ; they have three children : Fred- 
erick Allan, Charles Rathbone and Alice May Ballou. 



CARR, George Wheaton, M. D , Providence, 
was born in Warwick, R. I., January 31, 1834, son 
of John and Maria (Brayton) Carr. He is a de- 
scendant in the seventh generation of Robert Carr 
of Portsmouth and Newport, R. I., who was born in 
England in 16 14 and died in Newport in 1681, 
leaving six children. Robert and Caleb Carr, broth- 
ers, sailed from London in the ship Elizabeth and 
Ann in 1635, and settled in Newport, R. L Caleb 
was subsequently Justice of General Quarter Sessions 
and the Court of Common Pleas, and in 1695 be- 
came Governor of the State of Rhode Island, under 
the Royal Charter. Both Robert and Caleb had 
families, and became large landed proprietors, 
owners of Gould and Rose islands at Newport, with 
nearly the whole of Dutch and Conanicut islands, 
and extensive tracts of land in Narragansett and 
Coweset, purchased chiefly of the Indians. Robert's 
son Caleb married Phillis Greene, lived in James- 
town, R. I., and died there in 1690. The latter's 
son Robert, born in Jamestown in 1683, married 
Hannah Hall, and had three children, and died in 
Warren, R. I. His son Caleb, of Newport, born 
there in 17 19, married Ruth Miller and had ten 
children, and died in 1767. His son Caleb, of 
Warren, was born there in 1743, and married LiUis 
Barton of Warren, a cousin of Gen. William Barton, 
and granddaughter of Governor Samuel Gorton, who 
though suffering much at the hands of Massachu- 
setts, came off finally triumphant, and in 165 1 was 
Governor of the United Colonies of Providence and 
Warwick. Captain Caleb Carr and his son. Captain 
John (born in Warren in 1771 and died there in 
1815, having married Patty Davis and had eight 
children), were joint owners of the brig Rambler, 
which sailed from Baltimore in February i799> under 
the command of Captain John Carr, was captured 
by a French privateer sailing under the authority of 
the French Republic, and was subsequently taken 
from them by a Spanish man-of-war, carried into 
the port of Barracoa and sold ; the claim arising 
from this case was allowed by Congress under the 
provisions of tlie French Spoliation Act, and amounts 
to a considerable sum, not yet paid. John's son 
John, of Warwick, who was born in Warren in 1795, 
married in 1824 Maria Brayton, had six children, 
and died in 1873, was the father of the subject of 
this sketch. As indicative of his thoroughly Rhode 
Island ancestry, and to illustrate the custom of inter- 
marriage among the older families of the colonies, it 
may be stated that he is descended from a large 
number of prominent Rhode Island families, among 




/X/^^^^^y^ yVr ^<^=s^<y^ 



J 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



15 



others those of Brayton, Greene, Almy, Barton, Law, 
Rhodes, Arnold, Hail, Miller, Watson and Gorton. 
George Wheaton Carr prepared for college at the 
Fruit Hill Classical Institute, at that time a flour- 
ishing seminary, and entered Brown University in 
1853, graduating in the class of 1857 with the degree 
of Master of Arts. He was elected and served 
as Class Poet, and delivered the class poem on 
class day in Manning Hall. On leaving college he 
entered upon the study of medicine in the office 
of Dr. J. W. C. Ely, Providence. He pursued his 
studies at the National Medical College in Wash- 
ington and in the University of Pennsylvania, grad- 
uating from the latter institution with the degree 
of Doctor of Medicine in i860. Returning to 
Providence he entered upon the practice of medi- 
cine and surgery, became Surgeon to the Providence 
Cadets and later was appointed Assistant Surgeon 
General of the State. The civil war broke out the 
following year and he was called away from private 
life. With other members of the General Staff of 
the State he was transferred to the first troops raised 
in Rhode Island, and commissioned Assistant Sur- 
geon of the First Regiment Rhode Island Detached 
Militia, commanded by Colonel (afterwards Gen- 
eral) A. E. Burnside. He continued with the 
regiment during its short but active service, serving 
under General Patterson in Maryland and General 
Winfield Scott at the battle of Bull Run. After 
the First Regiment was mustered out he was ap- 
pointed Assistant Surgeon of the Second Rhode 
Island Volunteers, under Colonel (now General) 
Frank Wheaton, and was subsequently promoted 
to the post of Surgeon, serving in that capacity 
and as brigade operating surgeon, and as brigade 
surgeon in the Fourth and Sixth Army Corps, and 
in General Couch's Division, in the battles of 
Yorktown, Mechanicsville, Gaines Mill, Fair Oaks, 
Seven Pines, Malvern Hill, Antietam, Fredericks- 
burg, the Wilderness, Gettysburg, Mine Run, 
Rappahannock, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Han- 
over Junction, and in other engagements. At the 
close of the war Dr. Carr resumed the practice of 
his profession in Providence. He was admitted 
to the Rhode Island State Medical Society and 
to the Providence Medical Association in i860, 
and from March 1870 to March 1872 was President 
of the latter organization. He was appointed 
Physician of the Rhode Island State Prison in 
July 1868, and filled that position until the re- 
moval of that institution from Providence in 1878. 
In 1868 he was appointed United States Examin- 



ing Surgeon of Pensioners, and served twenty-five 
years ; was Surgeon of the Rhode Island Hospital 
twenty years, receiving his appointment in 1868 
and resigning in 1888 ; and was six years a member 
of the Board of Examiners of the Rhode Island 
Medical Society. He has been closely identified 
with the State Militia and National Guard, serving 
as Brigade Surgeon many years ; on the reorgan- 
ization of the State Mihtia he was made Medical 
Director, and served in that capacity thirteen years. 
He was the first Surgeon of the Grand Army of the 
Republic in the state, and for several years was 
Medical Director of that body. He is also Consult- 
ing Physician of the Butler Hospital for the Insane, 
Consulting Surgeon of the Rhode Island Hospital 
and of St. EHzabeth's Home, and a member of the 
American Medical Association, American Academy 
of Medicine, and the Association of Military Sur- 
geons of the National Guard. Dr. Carr was mar- 
ried, April 17, 1871, to Miss Imogen Matthewson, 
a Hneal descendant of Dr. John Hoyle, prominent 
in the early annals of the city of Providence, whose 
character and benevolence not only made their im- 
press upon the history of his time, but have perpet- 
uated his name to the present day ; and who in 
1710-20, when the fires of religious controversy 
raged fiercely throughout the New England Colonies, 
proved himself, by deed and by gift, the defender 
and patron of freedom in religious worship. They 
had one child : George Wheaton Carr, Jr., born 
November 12, 1879, died March 16, 1881. 



COLWELL, FRANCis,City Solicitor of Providence, 
was born in Cranston, R. I., April 7, 1833, the son 
of Francis and Harriet B. (Tucker) Colwell. He is 
a lineal descendant of Robert Colwell, who came to 
Rhode Island with Roger Williams, and the family 
became connected with that of Williams by mar- 
riage, and located in the town of Glocester. His 
father, Francis Colwell, was a prominent physician 
of Providence for many years. The subject of this 
sketch was educated in the public schools of Provi- 
dence, and entered Brown University in 1852, but 
did not graduate. He adopted the law as a pro- 
fession and entered the office of the late Hon. 
Abraham Payne, whose partner he became after his 
admission to the Rhode Island bar in 1856. He 
has since practised his profession in Providence, 
and has taken a somewhat active part in public 
affairs. Early in his professional life he was elected 
Judge of the old Court of Magistrates, and held the 



/ 



i6 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



office for several years under re-election. He was 
elected City Solicitor in 1866. He was a member 
of the House of Representatives in the General As- 
sembly for several years, and was elected Senator in 
1875-76 and again in 1884. He was a member of 




FRANCIS COLWELL. 

the Common Council in 1870 and President of that 
body in 1875-76, was again elected to the office of 
City Solicitor in 1892, and has since held that posi- 
tion. He is a member of the Rhode Island Bar 
Club, and of several social associations. He was 
for four years President of the Unitarian Club. In 
politics he is a Republican. He married, March 
17, 1864, Miss Anna F. Packard, daughter of Henry 
Packard of Providence ; they have had two chil- 
dren : Augusta M. (deceased) and Henry F. Colwell, 
a banker in Boston. 



CHILD, Benjamin Ham, Chief of Police of the 
City of Providence, was born in Providence, May 
8, 1843, son of John Griswold and Mary Ann 
(Ham) Child, the former a native of Connecticut 
and the latter of Providence. He attended the 
common schools in Providence until fourteen years 
of age, when he was apprenticed to Granville 
Greenleaf, a wireworker in Westminster Street. 
He was a youth of eighteen at the opening of the 
civil war, and in June 1861 he enlisted as private, 



and was mustered into the United States service in 
the Second Rhode Island Battery, afterwards Bat- 
tery A, First Regiment, Rhode Island Light Artil- 
lery, for three years, or for the war. At the first 
Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861, he was slightly 
wounded, and in August following was promoted to 
corporal. He was again slightly wounded at the 
Battle of Antietam, on which occasion he was pro- 
moted to Sergeant. At Gettysburg, in Pickett's 
charge, he received a severe wound — " shot through 
the left shoulder," — and was sent to the Satterlee 
Hospital at West Philadelphia. And in August 1863 
he was commissioned Second Lieutenant of Battery 
A (afterwards transferred to Battery H, same regi- 
ment) by Governor James Y. Smith. After serving 
forty-three months in the Second Army Corps, 
Army of the Potomac, and three times wounded, 
he was honorably discharged on account of wounds, 
by special order of General Meade, commanding 
the Army of the Potomac. In 1868 he was ap- 
pointed patrolman in the police department of 
Providence, by Mayor Thomas A. Doyle, and was 
successively promoted to Doorman of Station i in 




B. H. CHILD. 

1874, Sergeant of Station 4 in 1S77, Captain in 1879, 
and was appointed Chief of Police, January 5, 188 1. 
He is Past Department Commander of the Rhode 
Island G. A. R., Past Grand Chancellor K. of P. of 
Rhode Island, also a member of Swarts Lodge No. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



17 



18, I. O. O. F., and Massachusetts Commandery of 
the military order Loyal Legion of the United 
States. In politics he is a Republican. He was 
married November 14, 1872, to Mrs. Ruth Avery; 
they have one daughter : Mary Elizabeth Avery, who 
married Abner E. Claflin, of Providence, November 
12, 1895. 

COGGESHALL, Chandler Hall, farmer, Bris- 
tol, was born in Bristol, son of Wilbour B. and 
Eliza J. (Coggeshall) Coggeshall. He is descended 



1893, being on various important committees and 
now a member of the Finance Committee. In 
politics he is a Republican. He is not married. 




C. H. COGGESHALL. 

from an old and honored Rhode Island family, 
his ancestor, John Coggeshall, having been the 
first President of the Colony of Rhode Island. He 
received his early education in the public schools 
of Bristol, and graduated from the high school, and 
subsequently from Schofield's Commercial College 
of Providence. He has since successfully followed 
agricultural pursuits in Bristol. He has taken an 
active part in public affairs. He has been a member 
of the School Committee since 1884. He has been 
a member of the Board of Managers of the Rhode 
Island College of Agricultural and Mechanic Arts 
since its establishment and is now President of that 
body. He was a Representative from his native 
town in the General Assembly for seven vears from 
1883 to 1890, and has served as State Senator since 



CARPENTER, Phanuel Bishop, physician, was 
born in Seekonk, Mass., January 8, 1832, son of Job 
and Eliza (Bishop) Carpenter. He is the de- 
scendant of William Carpenter, one of three 
brothers, who left England on account of the perse- 
cution of the Quakers, and settled in Weymouth, 
Mass., in 1838. His son William settled in Reho- 
both, now Seekonk, in 1645, where he was town 
clerk and delegate to the Plymouth General Court. 
His descendants occupied prominent positions in 
town affairs and took part in the Colonial and Rev- 
olutionary wars. Dr. Carpenter received his early 
education in the public schools and took a course 
in Worcester Academy. He began self-support at 
an early age, and was four years in the dry-goods 
business. For six years he conducted a boot and 
shoe business in Providence and Pawtucket, and for 




p. B. CARPENTER. 

five years was engaged in the manufacture of jewelry. 
During his active business life he was pursuing 
a system of self-education with a view to the adop- 
tion of the medical profession, and in 1868 he com- 
menced the regular study of medicine in the office 



/, 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



of Dr. George D. Wilcox of Providence where he re- 
mained for two years. He entered Harvard Medi- 
cal College in 1870 and took a course of study in 
the Eclectic Medical College of New York, and a 
course in the Eclectic Medical College of Pennsyl- 
vania, graduating from the latter in 1872. From 
1872 to the present time he has been in active 
practice in Providence. He has been a member oi 
the Rhode Island Homoeopathic Medical Society 
for twenty-two years. He is a member of Union 
Lodge, No. 10, A. F. & A. M., of Pawtucket, R. I. ; 
Unity Lodge, I. O. O. F. ; Mazeppa Encampment, 
I. O. O. F. ; and Excelsior Lodge, Knights of Honor, 
of Providence, R. I. He has not taken an active part 
in public life, but in politics he is a Republican. 
In his religious views he is " broad, liberal, and 
modern." " Although his ancestors were Quakers 
in the strictest sense, and worshipped under the 
rigid doctrine of that sect, he himself throws aside 
all creeds and dogmas, believing earnestly in the 
progress of the human race and of the spirit after 
death, which, together with the daily practice of the 
Golden Rule, must ultimately bring man to that 
perfection in the future world as designed for him 
by the Creator." He has had five children : Lita 
Barney, died in 1866 aged two years, William 
Huckins, Phanuel Bishop, Jr., Mary Eliza and 
Hattie Ella Carpenter. 



CARROLL, Hugh Joseph, attorney-at-law, was 
born in Lippitt, one of the villages of the town of 
Warwick, R. I., October 29, 1854, the son of Hugh 
Carroll and Ann (McElhaney) Carroll. His parents 
came from County Monayhan, Ireland. He was edu- 
cated in the public school at Phenix, near by, and pre- 
pared for college by Rev. John A. Couch, Catholic 
pastor of that place and an old time classical scholar. 
He received his college training at Niagara, N. Y., 
University and at St. Laurent's College, near Mon- 
treal, P. Q. He studied law with Attorney-General 
Willard Sayles and his partner. Judge Wm. H. Greene, 
and wasadmitted to the bar August 27,1877. In 1888 
he located in Pawtucket where he has since resided. 
When he attained his majority Mr. Carroll entered 
heartily into politics as a Democrat, his chief object 
being the abolition of the property qualification, then 
a requisite for voting in Rhode Island, for natural- 
ized citizens of all kinds, but now repealed. Since 
then he has served his city in the General Assembly 
several terms and has been Mayor twice. During 
his last term of office in 1890 occurred the centen- 



nial of the founding of the cotton industry in the 
United States by Samuel Slater. Mr. Carroll obtained 
a large appropriation from the General Assembly, 
which with a similar amount appropriated by the city, 
enabled Pawtucket to have a week's exhibition which 
extended the reputation of that busy city through- 
out the mechanical and manufacturing world ; Rev. 
Edward Everett Hale assisted at the celebration and 
took a most lively interest in it. As Mr. Carroll's 
people were of the hardy, working peasant class of 
Ireland, he has always been active in Irish national 
and laboring matters. He introduced the present 




HUGH J. CARROLL. 

ten-hour law for the state, and has always tried to 
settle any differences between capital and labor, and 
has succeeded whenever his advice prevailed among 
strikers. He takes pride in the development of 
Pawtucket, and is always active in promoting its 
interests. In 1880 he married Sarah M., daughter 
of James and Alice Washerton of Phenix, R. I ; 
they have a family of four children. 



CHAGNON, Charles Emile, physician and 
pharmacist, was born in St. Dominique, Province of 
Quebec, Canada, October 7, 1863, son of J. B. and 
Victoria (Des Noyers) Chagnon. His family is of old 
Norman descent and came to Canada in 1750. He 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



19 



received his early education in the common schools. 
He attended the Seminary of St. Hyacinthe, Can- 
ada, from 1875 to 1879, and the college of Ste. Marie 
de Monnoir in 1883-85. From 1879 to 1883 he 
was engaged in the drug business with his father in 




CHAS. E. CHAGNON. 

Fall River, Mass. In 1885, shortly after leaving col- 
lege, he went to New Orleans during the World's 
Exhibition, and while there became interested in a 
company to explore the gold region of Honduras. 
He remained in Central America for three years, 
visiting all five of the republics and travelling in all 
parts of that wild country. While there he perfected 
his linguistic acquirements, so that he speaks fluently 
Spanish and Portuguese as well as French and 
English. On his return to New England he en- 
tered the Medical Department of the University of 
Vermont, and continued the study of medicine at 
the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Baltimore 
from which he graduated in 1890. After gradu- 
ating he entered his father's office in Fall River, 
and practised with him for six months, after which 
he opened an office in Centerville, R. I. He is a 
registered pharmacist and proprietor of the" Family 
Drug Store," one of the finest drug stores in the 
Pawtuxet Valley, with one of the best clicnicles of 
any young physician in the state. He is now serving 
his third term as Councilman for the town of War- 



wick. In politics he is a Republican " in every 
sense of the word," but does not let party govern 
his actions in matters of public welfare. He is a 
member of the Odd Fellows fraternity ; of Washing- 
ton Lodge, No. II, Knights of Pythias ; Red Men; 
Foresters ; St. John the Baptist Society of Center- 
ville ; the Providence Athletic Association, and the 
Rhode Island Mortar and Pestle Club. He married, 
August 4, 1891, Miss Victorine Beaudry ; they have 
three children : Estelle, Colombe, and Teannette 
Chagnon. 

COOK, Samuel Penny, City Treasurer of Woon- 
socket, and banker, was born July 20, 1852, in 
Albion, R. I., the son of Ariel Lindsey and Mary 
Harris (Phillips) Cook. He received his early 
education in the public schools of AVoonsocket, and 
entered the high school, but did not complete the 
course. He commenced his business career in 
July 1870 as clerk in the Producers' National Bank, 
which position he held until August 1885, when he 
was elected Treasurer of the Producers' Savings Bank, 
and later Cashier of the Producers' National Bank 




S. p. COOK. 

He has been a Trustree of the Producers' Savings 
Bank since 1874, and Director of the Producers' 
National Bank since 1886. He has been Treasurer 
of the Woonsocket Opera House Company since 
1889. He was a Director in the Woonsocket Elec- 



20 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



trie Machine and Power Company from 1888 to 
1894; has been Treasurer and Director of the 
Woonsocket Land Company since 1893 ; Treasurer 
and Director of the Rhode Island Granite Pressed 
Brick Company since April 1895, and a Director 
in the Perforated Pad Company since November 
1885. He was Town Treasurer of Woonsocket 
from August 1885 to January 1889, and since 
that time City Treasurer, and has been Trustee 
of the Consolidated School District since April 
1889. He was recorder of Woonsocket Com- 
mandery Knights Templar from October 1876 to 
October 1878, and from October 1883 to October 
1889. In politics he is a Republican. He married, 
January 31, 1883, Miss Lucia Grey Moses ; they 
have two children : Theodore Phillips and Gertrude 
Nourse Cook. 



COYLE, Philip Henry, late Manager of the 
National Rubber Company, was born in Bristol, R. I., 
March 31,1858, son of Philip and Sarah Anna (Rohan) 
Coyle. His father was born in Ireland of old his- 
toric ancestry, and came to this country when a 
young man ; he was for a time an instructor in St. 
Louis, and afterward entered the manufacturing 
business ; he was killed by an accident before he 
was forty. His grandfather was never in active 
business, other than the management of his own 
estate, and was killed at an early age by being 
thrown from his horse. His mother was born in 
Manchester, England, and brought to this country 
when a child ; she was descended from the early 
English Methodists, and her ancestors were promi- 
nent in many notable religious and political move- 
ments. He received his early education in the 
public schools of Bristol and afterward at the Rhode 
Island School of Design. He continued the study 
of art in the Boston Art School, and later with Jug- 
laris of Paris. He received many gratifying testi- 
monials for his talent, but on account of weak eye- 
sight at the time determined to take up a business 
career. He entered the employ of the National 
Rubber Company at Bristol at an early age, and 
made a thorough study of the business in all its 
branches under some of the most experienced work- 
men. He labored in every department and was 
steadily advanced to positions of responsibility. In 
1879 he entered the ofifice of the company and was 
rapidly advanced in important positions until 1889, 
when the company met with financial losses, and 
was reorganized. He was the only one of the old 



staff who was retained, with the superintendent, to 
operate the new concern. In 1892 the superintend- 
ent died suddenly, and he carried on the business 
without interruption. In 1893 he was elected Man- 
ager, and under his management the concern met 
with great success, the product being doubled, and 
the factories reconstructed and largely increased. 
The present capacity for boots and shoes alone is 
fifty thousand pairs per day, and in addition to this 
there are other departments, manufacturing a large 
line of clothing, druggists' goods, mechanical appli- 
ances, etc. The plant covers about twenty acres, 
and employs about fifteen hundred people. In 1895 




PHILIP H. COYLE. 

he resigned and entered business for himself. He 
has taken an active part in public affairs. He was 
President of the Town Council from 1887 to 1891, a 
member of the School Committee for six years, and 
has filled various other political and civic olifices. He 
is a member of a large number of clubs and socie- 
ties in the state. In politics he is a Republican. 
He is not married. 



CRAFTS, Aldert Barnard, attorney-at-law, was 
born at Milan, N. H., September 4, 185 1, son of 
Frederick A. and Maria L. (Soule) Crafts. He 
received his education in the high schools of Edgar- 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



21 



town, Martha's Vineyard, and Brockton, Mass. He 
graduated from Wesleyan University, Middletown, 
Conn., in the class of 1871, afterwards receiving 
the degree of A. M. in course. He adopted the 
law as a profession, studied in the office of the 




A. B. CRAFTS. 

Hon. Thomas H. Peabody, in Westerly, R. I., and 
was admitted to the Connecticut and Rhode Island 
bars in 1875. He has been a member of the firm 
of Peabody & Crafts and Crafts & Tillinghast, and 
has since practised by himself in the Rhode Island, 
Connecticut and United States courts. He has 
not taken an active part in public life. He is a 
member of the Knights of Pythias, the Odd Fellows, 
and the Westerly Business Men's Association. He 
married, October i, 188 r, Miss Jennie Louisa Blake 
of Ashaway, R. I , who died November 19, 1884. 
He married, December 17, 1892, Miss Mary Amittai 
Stark of Mystic, Conn ; he has no children. 



DAVIS, William Dean, woolen manufacturer, 
Pi'ovidence, was born in Davisville, North Kings- 
town, R I., January 26, 1813, son of Jeffry and 
Elizabeth (Mawney) Davis. He is descended from 
Aaron Davis, who, November 13, 1694, became 
one of the proprietors of Dartmouth, Mass., in 
the confirmatory deed of Governor William Brad- 



ford. Joshua, the son of Aaron, bought the property 
in North Kingstown, now Davisville, and had a grist- 
mill there. This property Mr. Davis now owns. 
His grandson Joshua, Mr. Davis's grandfather, was 
Major of the Second Regiment of Kings county in 
the war of the Revolution, and was afterward a 
Deputy in the General Assembly from North Kings- 
town. Jeffry, Mr. Davis's father, was for many years 
a Senator from North Kingstown in the General 
Assembly. He received his early education in the 
public schools and in Kingstown Academy. At six- 
teen years he went into a store in New York and 
then into one in Philadelphia, remaining in both 
places about three years. Returning to North Kings- 
town he took an interest in the manufacturing of 
woolen goods, which business had been established 
by his father and uncle in 181 1, with carding 
machines for custom work, and which was afterward 
developed into spinning, weaving and cloth finish- 
ing. In 1850 he bought a woolen mill in Centre- 
ville, Warwick, R I., which he sold in i860. In 
1 86 1 he bought the Uxbridge Woolen Mill in Ux- 
bridge, Mass., which he sold in]i885. In 1884 he 




W. D. DAVIS. 

bought, with others, the Quidnick Mills, and formed 
the Quidnick Manufacturing Company, in which he 
still retains an interest. He has been a Represen- 
tative in the General Assembly from Nortli Kings- 

l 
,) 



22 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



town and afterward from Warwick. He has been 
a member of the Squantum Club since 1872. He 
married, in September 1849, Miss Mary Eleanor 
Congdon ; they have had four children : Jeffry, 
Elizabeth Le Moine, William Albert and Mary 
Congdon Davis ; the last named died in infancy. 



DOWNES, Lewis ' Thomas, President of the 
What Cheer and Hope Mutual Fire Insurance 
Companies, Providence, was born in Waterbury, 




L. T. DOWNES. 

Conn., July 9, 1824, the son of Anson and Eveline 
(Welton) Downes. He is a direct descendant in 
the seventh generation of John Downes, one of the 
early settlers of New Haven colony, whose first 
child was born in 1659. Mr. Downes' family is of 
Anglo-Saxon origin, and has an authentic pedigree 
from A. D. 1243. His grandfather, great-grand- 
father and other members of the family took an 
active part in the early colonial wars and in the 
Revolution. His early education was obtained at 
the Cheshire Academy, the Waterbury Academy, 
and afterwards at the Newtown Academy, in Con- 
necticut. He entered Trinity College, Hartford, 
and graduated in 1848 with the degree of A. B., 
receiving that of A. M. in 185 1. After graduation 



he studied law in the office of Judge Francis Parsons 
of Hartford. He went to Providence in 1855 and 
soon afterward entered the office of Royal Chapin, 
wool-dealer and manufacturer. In 1861 he became 
associated with George W. Chapin in the manufac- 
ture of woolen goods, and the firm soon after built 
the Riverside Mills. Previous to this he had spent 
some time in Europe, studying the methods and 
processes of the woolen manufacturers in England, 
France, Belgium, Germany and Austria. This 
resulted in his introducing into this country several 
machines and processes in the manufacture of 
woolen goods, not before known in the United 
States, among which may be mentioned the BoUette 
First Breaker Card Feeder, the first self-operating 
woolen mules, the Houget double-cylinder gig, now 
generally known as the Downes gig, as well as 
several other woolen finishing machines. Among 
the goods which were first produced in this country 
at the Riverside Mills were wool and mohair astra- 
khans, also worsted coatings and Austrian cloakings 
in great variety. In 1872 he left the Riverside 
Mills, and in 1873, with Elisha Harris, organized 
the What Cheer Mutual Fire Insurance Company, 
now one of the New England factory insurance 
companies, and in 1875 he organized the Hope 
Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and is now Presi- 
dent of both companies. Since his connection with 
the business he has brought into the mutual system 
upward of $65,000,000 of insurance on manufactur- 
ing property. For a great part of his life Mr. 
Downes has been known as a church musician and 
organist. Having received a careful musical train- 
ing as a portion of his early education, under some 
of the most noted masters of the organ and voice, 
he has cultivated this taste in several trips abroad 
by careful study of the music in the most famous 
cathedrals and churches in Europe, and has done 
much toward raising the standard of church music 
in this country, particularly in the Episcopal church. 
He was for several years a member of the School 
Committee of Providence and Chairman of the 
Committee on Music. He is a member of the 
Advance Club, being one of its Executive Com- 
mittee and Chairman of the Committee on Muni- 
cipal Reform. He has also been a member of the 
Churchman's Club since its organization. In poli- 
tics he has always been a staunch Repulilican. In 
1857 he married Miss Sarah Chapin, daughter of 
Royal and Maria T. Chapin ; they have had four 
children : Ellen M., Herbert C, Emma W. and 
Louis W. Downes, the two latter now living. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



23 



DUBOIS, Henry Joseph Church, Assistant At- 
torney-General of Rhode Island, was born in London, 
England, June 22, 1850, during the temporary ab- 
sence of his parents from the United States. His 
parents were Edward Church and Emma (Davison) 
Dubois. On his paternal side he is of American 
descent ; his paternal grandfather, Edward Church, 
was a native of Kentucky, and was United States 
Consul at L'Orient, France, for many years, being 
first appointed thereto by President Madison On 
his maternal side he is of EngHsh ancestry, his 
mother being descended from the English families 




H. J. C. DUBOIS. 

of Davison and Moore ; the family name, Church, 
was changed to Dubois in 1857. The subject of 
this sketch received his early education at Russell's 
Academy (the Collegiate and Commercial Institute), 
New Haven, Conn. ; the Grove-street Grammar 
school of Pawtucket, R. I., and the Friends' Acad- 
emy in New Bedford, Mass. He commenced 
reading law in the ofifice of John E. Risley, Jr. 
Providence, and afterward read in the office of Hon. 
William VV. Douglas and Hon. James C. Collins. 
He was admitted to the Rhode Island bar at the 
October term in 187 1, and afterward on September 
22, 1880, to the United States Circuit Court in 
Providence. He commenced the practice of his 
profession in Providence, where he has since suc- 
cessfully practised. In 1872 he was appointed by 



Governor Padelford, Clerk of the Justice Court of 
the Town of North Providence, and at the May 
Session of the General Assembly in 1873, was elected 
to the same office, and held the position until the 
division of said town. In 1873 he was elected by 
the Town Council of North Providence, Trial 
Justice of the Justice Court, of the Third Voting 
District of said town, and also Coroner, which 
positions he held until the division of the town. In 
January 1893 he was elected by the City Council of 
Providence one of the Justices of the Police Court, 
and in May 1894 was appointed by Hon. Edward C. 
Dubois Attorney General, Assistant Attorney Gen- 
eral. He was for several years a member of the 
Republican City Committee from the Tenth Ward 
of Providence. He was one of the organizers of 
the British American Association of Rhode Island 
and was its president for several years. In politics 
he has always been a Repubhcan. He married, 
October 23, 1872, Miss Eoline Glenmore Dean; 
they have had eight children : Henry Dean, Russell 
Charles, Edward Davison", Eoline Beatrice, Daisy 
Alice, Edward Gordon, Gladys Hope and Constance 
Glenmore Dubois, all of whom are now living ex- 
cepting Edward Davison, who died in infancy. 



DOUGLAS, Samuel Tobey, attorney-at-law, was 
born in Providence, November 15, 1853, son of Rev. 
William and Sarah (Sawyer) Douglas. His father 
was born in Pollock Shaws. near Glasgow, Scotland, 
of an ancient Scotch house. His mother was a 
native of SaUsbury, Mass., of American and remotely 
of EngHsh descent. He received his preparatory 
education in the public schools of Providence, and 
entered Brown University, from which he graduated 
with the degree of B. P. in 1872. He afterwards 
entered the Department of Law in Union Univer- 
sity, Albany, N. Y., from which he graduated with 
the degree of LL. B. in 1875. He was admitted 
to the bar of the state of New York, May 21, 1875, 
to the bar of Rhode Island, November 2, 1875, and 
to the Circuit Court of the United States, March 7, 
1877. He has since practised his profession in 
Providence. In January 1890 he was appointed 
Commissioner of the United States Circuit Court 
for the District of Rhode Island, which office he 
now holds He has taken an active part in the 
service of the Rhode Island militia He was Second 
Lieutenant and Judge Advocate of the First Light 
Infantry Regiment from 1879 to 1880; Captain and 
Adjutant from 1880 to 1884; Major from 1886 



24 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



to 1887; Lieutenant-Colonel from 1887 to 1889; 
Adjutant of the Veteran Association from 1884 to 
1887 and Major from 1893 to 1895. He was a 
member of the Common Council from 1887 to 1890 
and of the Board of Aldermen from 1890 to 1892. 




S, T, DOUGLAS. 

In politics he is a RepubHcan He is a member of 
the First Baptist Church, of the Rhode Island His- 
torical Society, the First Light Infantry Veteran 
Association, and of the Hope, Athletic, Providence 
Bar and Young Men's [Republican clubs. He mar- 
ried, November 20, 1878, Miss Alice Crawford Noyes, 
who died January 10, 1881 ; they had one child, 
Samuel Noyes Douglas, now living. On September 
24, 1884, he married Miss Edith Courtney Harris, 
who died November 27, 1885. He again married, 
January i, 1890, Miss Alice Barnes Wilbur. 



DOUGLAS, William W., Jusnce of the Supreme 
Court, was born in Providence, November 26, 1841, 
son of Rev William and Sarah (Sawyer) Douglas. 
His father was a native of Scotland and born near 
Glasgow. His mother was a native of Salisbury, 
Mass. He was educated in the public schools in 
Providence and at Brown University, graduating in 
the class of 1861 with the degree of A. M. After 
graduation he was attached to the Fifth Regiment 
R. I. Vols , then recruiting, and received a commis- 



sion as Second Lieutenant. He took part with his 
regiment in the Burnside expedition, participating 
in the batdes of Roanoke Island, Newbern, and the 
siege of Fort Macon. He was promoted to First 
Lieutenant June 7, 1862, and to Captain February 14, 
1863. He was with the regiment on the steamer 
Escort when the rebel blockade on the Pamlico 
River was broken by running past the batteries to 
Washington, N. C. On the expiration of his term 
of service, not anticipating any further active service 
for the regiment, which had been changed to one 
of heavy artillery, he returned to Providence and 
studied law, first in the office of Samuel Currey and 
afterwards at the Law School of Union University, 
Albany, N. Y., where he graduated in May 1866, with 
the degree of LL. B. He was admitted to the bar 
of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, January i, 
1867, and practised law in Providence until elected 
Justice of the Supreme Court. He was Commissioner 
of the United States Circuit Court for the District of 
Rhode Island from 1874 until 1890. From 1888 to 
1890 he was Chief Supervisor of Elections for Rhode 




W. W. DOUGLAS. 

Island under appointment from the United States 
Circuit Court. In 1890 when serving as Senator from 
Providence he was elected .'\ssociate Justice of the 
Supreme Court, and took his seat in August of that 
year. In addition to his law practice he has taken 




C7^t^i/2^1.^C4^^ \^^^>"^0^ 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



25 



an earnest interest in public and military affairs. He 
was elected a member of the General Assembly for 
the first time in 1871 and re-elected the following 
year. He was a member of the Common Council 
of Providence from the Second Ward from June 
1873 to January 1876. In 1866 he was appointed 
Major and division Judge Advocate on the staff of 
Gen. Olney Arnold, commanding the Rhode Island 
militia, and held the same position on the staff of 
Gen. Horace Daniels, Gen. Arnold's successor, until 
1874. In 1881 he was appointed assistant adju- 
tant-general of Rhode Island with rank of Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel, and in 1882 was promoted to be adju- 
tant-general with the rank of Brigadier-General, 
holding the office until it was filled by election in 
the General Assembly. He was commander of Rod- 
man Post, No. 12, Grand Army of the Repubhc, 
Department of Rhode Island, 1869-1870, and was 
Judge Advocate-General of the Grand Army of the 
Republic from 187 1 to 1877, serving on the staffs of 
Commanders-in-Chief Burnside, Devens and Hart- 
ranft. He was senior Vice-Commander of the 
Massachusetts Commandery of the Military Order 
of the Loyal Legion, 1889-1890. He was for some 
years treasurer of the society of the First Baptist 
Church in Providence, and one of the trustees of 
the Ministerial Fund. He is a member of the 
Hope, Squantum and Art clubs, the Providence 
Athletic Association, the Grand Army of the Repub- 
lic, the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, and 
various professional and literary societies. In poli- 
tics he is a Republican. He married, June 30, 1884, 
Miss Anna Jean Bennett of Newton, Mass ; they 
have no children. 



DURFEE, Thomas, Providence, ex-Chief Justice 
of the Supreme Court, was born in Tiverton, Rhode 
Island, February 6, 1826. He was the eldest son of 
Job and Judith (Borden) Durfee. His early years 
were spent at the home of his parents, and to some 
extent in the Jabors of the farm, his father being a 
great lover of farm and country life. He attended 
the school of his district in the summer and received 
instruction at home in the winter, the school being 
distant. When fourteen years old he went to East 
Greenwich and began preparing himself for college, 
first under the tuition of the late Rev. James Richard- 
son, and later under that of the Rev. Nathan Williams. 
He entered Brown University in 1842 and graduated 
in 1846. His class was large for the time and had in 
it students who have since attained much distinction. 



Immediately after his graduation he commenced the 
study of law, as a student with Tillinghast & Brad- 
ley, but pursuing his studies for the first year and 
more at his home in Tiverton. He was admitted 
to the bar in October 1848, and at once entered 
on the practice of his profession in the city of 
Providence, where he has since resided. In Oct- 
ober 1849, he was appointed by the Supreme Court, 
Reporter of the Decisions and held the office for 
four years. He then served on the Court of Magis- 
trates of the city of Providence from 1854 to i860, 
one year as assistant and five years as presiding 
magistrate. In 1863 he was one of the Representa- 
tives of the city of Providence in the General As- 
sembly and Speaker of the House for that year. 
He was an active supporter of the Government 
during the Civil War with both voice and pen, and 
in 1864 was one of the delegates from Rhode Island 
to the convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln 
for President for a second term, and was by ap- 
pointment of his associates, president of the delega- 
tion. In 1865 he was elected to the State Senate, 
and in June of that year was chosen an Associate 
Justice of the Supreme Court, and soon after took 
his seat as such. January 28, 1875, he was elected 
Chief Justice, to succeed Judge Brayton who had 
retired, and took the oath of office February 6, 
1875, his forty-ninth birthday. He retired from 
the Bench March 14, 1891, after a service of more 
than nine years as Associate, and more than sixteen 
years as Chief Justice. The Court during his in- 
cumbency had a jurisdiction, original and appellate, 
covering nearly the whole range of judicial proceed- 
ings. Its published decisions for that period, extend- 
ing inclusively from the eighth to the seventeenth 
volume of the Rhode Island Reports, show in part 
the importance and variety of the questions before 
it, and also the manner in which they were met 
and decided. It may be mentioned here, as an 
example of the law of heredity, that Judge Durfee's 
grandfather, Thomas Durfee of Tiverton, was a 
lawyer and from 1820 to 1829 Chief Justice of the 
Court of Common Pleas for Newport county ; and 
that his father, also a lawyer, was Assistant Justice 
of the Supreme Court from June 1833 to June 1835, 
and then Chief Justice until his death, July 20, 1847. 
Since his retirement Judge Durfee has held no public 
office. He has for many years been a member of the 
corporation of Brown University, first as trustee and 
chancellor, and later as fellow, and received from it, 
in 1875, the degree of LL. D. He now fills, and 
has for some years filled, the office of President of 



26 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



the Providence Public Library. Judge Durfee has 
occasionally contributed to periodicals and newspa- 
pers, and has written some things which, having 
been separately published, may be separately men- 
tioned. In 1856-57 he completed a work on the 
Law of Highways, commenced by the late Joseph 
K. .Angell, shortly before his death, published by 
Little & Brown in 1887. In 1872 he put forth a 
small volume of verse entitled " The Village Picnic 
and Other Poems." In December 1877 he de- 
livered the oration at the dedication of the Providence 
County Court House, pubhshed by order of the State. 
In 1883 he prepared a paper entitled " Gleanings 
from the Judicial History of Rhode Island," published 
by Mr. Sidney Rider, number eighteen of his series 
of " Rhode Island Historical Tracts." In 1884 he 
published a pamphlet entitled " Some Thoughts on 
the Constitution of Rhode Island." It was devoted 
mainly to the question, whether it is competent for 
the General Assembly of Rhode Island to call a con- 
vention for the amendment or revision of the consti- 
tution of the state, the amendments or revisions 
when prepared by it, to be submitted to the electors 
for adoption by a simple majority vote. The con- 
stitution contains a provision for its own amend- 
ment, prescribing the method to be followed in the 
most mandatory terms, arid requiring for the same, 
among other requirements, the approval of three 
fifths of the electors voting. The contention of the 
pamphlet was that the General Assembly has no 
authority to provide for an amendment in any other 
manner, and that revision, even when it takes the 
form of a so-called new constitution, is but a work 
of amendment On June 24. 1886, Judge Durfee 
delivered the oration at the celebration of the two 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the planting of 
Providence, pubhshed by the city and in other ways ; 
and June 29, 1894, an oration at the dedication of 
the statue of Ebenezer Knight Dexter, published by 
the city of Providence. He married, October 29, 
1857, Sarah J. Slater, a daughter of John Slater 2d, 
and has one son, Samuel Slater Durfee. 



ECROYD, Henry, M. D., of Newport, was 
born in Muncy, Lycoming county. Pa., May 6, 
1858, son of James and Rachel (Haines) Ecroyd. 
He is descended, on the paternal side, from the 
Ecroyd family of Lancashire, England, where the 
records show they have held public offices since 
the reign of Richard II in the fourteenth century. 
Thii? family were among the early followers of George 



Fox, and introduced into their district the manu- 
facture of worsted. The grandfather of the present 
representative of the family in this country emi- 
grated to the United States in 1795 and bought 
a large tract of land in Pennsylvania from sons of 
the scientist Dr. Priestly. The subject of this 
sketch is a graduate of the Friends' School at 
Westtown, Pa., and of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, class of 1883, Medical Department. He 
read medicine eighteen months with Dr. Rankin 
of Muncy, Pa., was three years at the University 
of Pennsylvania, and two years in the hospitals. 




HENRY ECROYD. 

He is acting Assistant Surgeon of the United States 
Marine Hospital service, a member of the staff of 
the Newport Hospital, and Medical Examiner for 
the Third District of Rhode Island. He is also 
a member of the Rhode Island State Medical 
Society, the State Medico-Legal Society, and the 
Newport Medical Society. He was married, Octo- 
ber 30, 1890, to Miss Rebekah Ashbridge of Philadel- 
phia, Pa., and has two children : Henry Ecroyd, Jr., 
and Elizabeth Ashbridge Ecroyd. 



EDDY, Charles D., Collector of Customs for 
Bristol and Warren District, was born in Providence, 
October i, 1829, the son of Cyrus B. and Eunice 
(Dyer) Eddy. His ancestry was of well known 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



27 



Rhode Island stock on both paternal and maternal 
sides. His early education was limited, and he 
adopted seafaring as a profession when quite 
young. He was promoted to positions of respon- 
sibility and was master of vessels in the foreign 




CHAS. 



EDDY. 



trade for fourteen years. In 1891 he was appointed 
Collector of Customs for the District of Warren and 
Bristol, which office he now holds. He is a 
member of the Masonic order. In politics he has 
always been a Republician. He married in March 
1862 Miss Sarah Martin Bennett, daughter of 
Capt. Albert C. Bennett, who died in 1886 ; they 
have had three children, Mary Eunice, Grace Dyer 
and Sarah Martin (deceased) Eddy. 



EASTMAN, James Henry, Superintendent of 
Rhode Island State Institutions, was born in Hano- 
ver, New Hampshire, May 31, 1842, son of Rev. 
Larnard L. and Lucy Ann (Currier) Eastman. Re- 
ceiving his early education in the district schools, 
he graduated at the New Hampshire Conference 
Seminary at Tilton, and entered Wesleyan Univer- 
sity in the fall of i860, but left in his junior year to 
enter the Union army. He served the remainder 
of the war, and was discharged as First Sergeant of 
Captain Sumner T. Smith's Company C, One Hun- 



dred and Ninety- First Ohio Volunteers, in August 
1865. At the close of the war he entered upon 
reformatory work, as teacher in the Boys' Reform 
School at Deer Island, Boston Harbor, during the 
winter of 1865-66. In Ap'il following he went to 
the Connecticut Reform School, remained there 
seven and a half years, and in September 1873 was 
appointed Superintendent of the Girls' Industrial 
School at Middletown, Conn. He left this position 
April I, 1874, to take charge of the Reform School 
for Boys at Jamesburg, N. J., where he remained 
ten and a half years, and resigned to take charge 
of the Sockanosset School for Boys at Howard, R. I., 
September i, 1884. In March 1886 he was ap- 
pointed General Superintendent of Rhode Island 
State Institutions, holding this position ever since. 
He belongs to the West Side, Pomham and Athletic 
clubs of Providence, and is a member of all the 
Masonic orders to the thirty-second degree, also 
of Prescott Post No. i. Department of Rhode Island, 
Grand Army of the Republic. He married, October 




JAS. H. EASTMAN. 

10, 1862, Elizabeth Finley of Middletown, Conn.; 
they have four children : George L., Assistant Sec- 
retary of the Rogers' Silver Plate Company, Danbury, 
Conn. ; Frank G., M. D., East Greenwich, R. I. ; 
Alice Trowbridge, Providence, R. I., and Grace 
Eastman. 



28 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



ELY, James Winchell Coleman, physician and 
surgeon, was born October 2, 1820, in Windsor, Vt., 
son of Rev. Richard M. and Lora (Skinner) 
Ely. He came of good old New England stock on 
both sides. His paternal ancestor, Nathaniel Ely, 
was made a freeman of Cambridge, Mass., in 1635, 
and in Jmie 1636 with a hundred others accom- 
panied Rev. Thomas Hooker and made the first 
settlement of Hartford, Conn ; in 1654, he with 
others purchased land of Governor Ludlow and 
settled at Norwalk, and in 1659 he sold his Norwalk 
property and removed to Springfield, Mass , where 
he died December 25, 1695. Dr. Ely fitted for col- 




J, W. C. ELY, 

lege in an academy at Townsend, Vt., under Prof. 
Wheeler, who was afterward Professor of Greek in 
Brown University. He entered Brown University 
in 1838 and graduated in 1842 with the degree of 
A. B., receiving the degree of A. M. some years 
later. Immediately upon leaving college he began 
the study of medicine. He attended two courses 
of lectures in the Medical Department of Harvard 
University, and received the degree of M. D. 
March 12, 1846. From April 1844 to April 1845 
he was Interne at the city institution at South 
Boston, long before the House of Industry was re- 
moved to Deer Island. He settled in Providence 
in April 1846, and was admitted a fellow of the 
Rhpde Island Medical Society in 1847. He has 



served in every ofifice in the gift of the society, and 
was elected President for two years, 1868-1870. He 
was one of the founders of the Providence Medical 
Association, its first Secretary and afterward its 
President. In 1847 he was appointed Dispensary 
Physician for the whole east side of the city, in 
which place he served four years, and on his resig- 
nation was appointed on the board of consultation. 
In 1850 he was elected one of the physicians of the 
Dexter Asylum, and also City Physician. He 
served in the former capacity fifteen and a half 
years, and in the latter eighteen years. Upon his 
resignation he was placed upon the consulting 
staff of the asylum. In January 1868 he was 
elected to the board of consultation at the Butler 
Hospital, which position he still holds. Upon the 
opening of the Rhode Island Hospital in 1868 he 
was elected one of the attending physicians. He 
resigned in 1874 and was placed on the consulting 
staff. In 1883, at the request of Professor Chace, 
President of the Board of Trustees, he again took 
the part of Attending Physician, and served six 
years. Since that time he has been on the con- 
sulting staff. Ever since the opening of the 
Providence Lying-in Hospital he has been a mem- 
ber of its consulting staff. He is a member of the 
American Academy of Medicine, and has served 
several times as delegate to the American Medical 
Association. Soon after settling in Providence he 
joined the Franklin Society, a scientific association, 
and was an active member, reading many papers, 
and having been elected its President. During the 
civil war he served with Dr. Joseph Mauran as an 
examining board for applicants for the positions of 
surgeons and assistant surgeons in the Rhode 
Island regiments. He has served for three years 
as one of the directors of the Providence Athen?eum, 
and two years as a member of the city School Com- 
mittee. He is a member of the Squantum Club. 
He married, June 6, 1848, Miss Susan Backus, 
daughter of Lieut.-Gov. Thomas Backus, of 
Killingly, Conn. ; he has two children : Joseph C. 
and Edward F. Ely. 



EAMES, Benjamin Tucker, attorney-at-law, Prov- 
idence, was born in Dedham, Mass., June 4, 18 18, 
son of James and Sarah (Mumford) Fames. His 
father was born in Haverhill, Mass., and his mother 
in Eastford, Conn. His parents in 1820 removed 
to Providence where they resided during life. He 
had the advantage of the schools of Providence, 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



29 



and of some of the leading academies of Massachu- 
setts and Connecticut. At the age of sixteen he 
was placed in the auction rooms of Martin Stoddard 
& Co., where he remained for a year or two, and 
then as bookkeeper entered the employ of Bates & 
Hutchins, wholesale drygoods merchants of Provi- 
dence, and subsequently the employ of Borden & 
Bowen, who were the agents of the Blackstone Man- 
ufacturing Coinpany, and the financial agents of the 
American Print Works in Fall River, Mass. With a 
thorough English education, and some knowledge of 
mercantile and commercial pursuits, which were of 
service to him in after life, in the fall of 1838 he 
went to the Worcester Academy, and under the 
tuition of the late Professor S. S. Greene prepared 
for, and in the fall of 1839 entered, Yale College, 
and graduated in 1843 with a fair standing in his 
class. He took during his college course an es- 
pecial interest in the debating and literary societies 
connected with the college. In the vacation before 
graduation he entered his name as a law student in 
the office of the late Chief Justice Samuel Ames, 
with whom was then associated Rollin Mathewson, 
Esq. For about six months after graduation he was 
engaged as a teacher in the academy at North At- 
tleboro, Mass. In the spring of 1844 he went to 
Cincinnati, Ohio, and entered the law office of the 
Hon. Bellamy Storer, where he remained until the 
following winter, when he was admitted to practice 
in the courts of Kentucky. Upon his return to 
Providence he was admitted in 1845 to practice in 
the courts of Rhode Island and in the United States 
courts, and since then, except when in Congress 
and for the past two years, he has been actively en- 
gaged in his profession in Providence. He grad- 
ually succeeded in obtaining a remunerative practice 
and a prominent position at the bar. From 1845 
to 1850 he served as Clerk of the House of Repre- 
sentatives of Rhode Island, and during part of this 
time was the reporter of the proceedings of the 
General Assembly for the Providence Daily Journal. 
In 1854 he was elected Senator from the city of 
Providence to the General Assembly, and was re- 
elected to that office in 1855, ^^5^> 1859, and 1863. 
He was a member of the state House of Representa- 
tives in 1859, 1868 and 1869, serving the last year 
as Speaker. He was one of the commissioners on the 
revision in 1857 of the public laws of Rhode Island. 
In i860 he was a Delegate to the Republican Con- 
vention at Chicago, which nominated Abraham 
Lincoln for the Presidency. In 1870 he was elected 
Representative to the Forty-second Congress from 



the First District of Rhode Island, and was re-elected 
to the Forty- third, Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth 
Congresses. In the Forty-second Congress he 
served on the committees on Elections and Revo- 
lutionary Claims and the War of 1812 ; in the For- 
ty-third, on the Committee on Patents ; in the 
Forty-fourth on the Committee of Banking and Cur- 
rency, and in the Forty-fifth on the same committee 
and Expenditures in the War Department. Among 
his speeches in Congress that have been published 
for circulation are those on the presentation by the 
State of Rhode Island of the Statue of Roger 




B, T, EAMES, 

WiUiams, Currency and Free Banking, Counting 
the Electoral Votes, Resumption of Specie Pay- 
ments, Repeal of the Resumption Clause, Coinage 
of the Silver Dollar, Treasury Notes as a Substitute 
for National Bank Notes, the Tariff, and Reduction 
of Letter Postage. In the fall of 1878 he declined 
to be a candidate for re-election to Congress. He 
was in 1879 elected a Representative to the General 
Assembly from Providence. He was re-elected to 
that office in 1880, and in 1884 was elected Senator 
from Providence. Mr. Fames became identified 
with the Republican party at its first organization. 
He stood by it through the struggle for national 
life, and has always been a firm supporter of its 
principles and policy. He was married in War- 



30 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



wick, R. I., May 9, 1849, to Laura S. Chapin, 
daughter of Josiah and Asenath (Capron) Chapin ; 
his wife died October i, 1872. Of four children, 
two died in infancy ; his son Waldo C, a graduate 
of Yale, class of i88r, died August 20, 1894; his 
daughter, Laura Chapin Eames, is living. 



ELY, Joseph Cady, attorney-at-law. Providence, 
was born in Providence, March 24, 1849, the son 
of Dr. James W. C. and Susan (Backus) Ely. The 
record of his ancestry will be found in the sketch of 




J, C. ELY. 

Dr. J. W. C. Ely. He received his early education 
in the grammar and high schools of Providence. 
He entered Brown University and graduated in the 
class of 1870 with the degree of A. B. He then 
entered the Harvard Law School and graduated in 
1872 with the degree of LL. B. He was admitted 
to the Rhode Island bar in December 1872. He 
entered the office of James Tillinghast as an assist- 
ant, and in 1874 formed a partnership with him, 
which continued until 1883, since which time he 
he has practiced law alone. 'I'he specialty of his 
practice is equity, real estate, conveyancing and 
consultation. In 1890 he was appointed member 
of a commission to revise the laws of Rhode Island 



under a statute directing revision and compilation, 
and whose work has been to reform the judicial 
system and practice in all courts, bringing the 
courts into closer relations, giving more efficient 
administration, more systematic methods of proce- 
dure, and speediness in litigation ; to reform the 
property law and the proceedings in cases of in- 
solvency ; also to revise the laws as to corporations, 
property of married women, marriage and divorce, 
and other matters, a work not heretofore at- 
tempted in this state. He was a member of the 
School Committee of Providence in 1885-86. He 
is a member and ex-President of the Unitarian 
Club, ex-President of the First Congregational 
Church Society. President of the Providence Athe- 
naeum and chairman of its library committee. He 
is Secretary of the Providence Art Institute, and is 
a member of the American Bar Association. He 
married, November 6, 1877, Miss Alice Peck; they 
have had three children : Alice Louise (deceased), 
Ruth and Robert B. Ely. 



FOSTER, Samuel, retired manufacturer. Prov- 
idence, was born in Dudley, Mass., October 13, 
1803, the son of Abel and Mary (Tucker) Foster. 
He is descended from old and honorable New Eng- 
land stock. His great-grandfather, Timothy Foster 
of Dudley, Mass., had twelve sons and four daugh- 
ters, and with all his sons served in the Revolutionary 
war, the aggregate service of the father and sons 
being sixty years, a circumstance probably unparal- 
leled in that of any other conflict. His son 
Timothy, the grandfather of Samuel, served in the 
French war, enlisting as a private at the age of 
sixteen ; he afterwards served in the Revolution 
during the war, enlisting as a private and being 
promoted to a Lieutenant, and was wounded. His 
brother John, when a boy, lived with General Israel 
Putnam at Pomfret, Conn. ; he served in the French 
war under Putnam and was in the battle of the 
Plains of Abraham, where General Wolfe was killed ; 
he afterwards married, and continued to work for 
Putnam until the outbreak of the Revolution when 
with his employtr he left the plough for the army; 
lie served under Putnam during the war and was 
gone eight years, and after the conclusion of the 
war, settled in Littleton, Mass., where he died in 
extreme old age. Joseph, another of the twelve 
brothers, enlisted in the army of the Revolution at 
the age of only thirteen years. Samuel Foster 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



31 



received his education in the common schools, 
and came to Providence in 1820, where he became 
clerk for Philip and Charles Potter in the retail 
grocery business. In 1825 he formed a co-partner- 
ship with his brother William under the firm name 
of S. & W. Foster, for the transaction of the whole- 
sale grocery business, which continued until 1877. 
In 1848 he associated with his brother William and 
John Atwood, for the manufacture of fine cotton 
goods, under the name of the Williamsville Manu- 
facturing Company, of KiUingly, Conn. He con- 
tinued an owner in this corporation until 1890, 
acting as its Treasurer from 1877. In January 




SAMUEL FOSTER. 

1849, S. & W. Foster admitted Henry J. Burroughs 
as a partner, under the firm name of S. &. W. 
Foster & Co. Prior to the admission of Mr. 
Burroughs into the firm, S. & W. Foster were for 
some time associated with H. S. Hutchins and 
William Pierce, under the name of Hutchins, 
Pierce & Co., doing a wholesale grocery business. 
In 1853, Addison Q. Fisher was admitted a member 
of the firm under the firm name of Foster, Bur- 
roughs & Fisher, wholesale grocers, which continued 
until 1858. On the death of Mr. Burroughs the 
business was continued under the name of Fosters 
& Fisher. In 1864, James H. Bugbee was admitted 
a partner under the firm name of Fosters, Fisher 
cS; Company. In 1862, Thomas A. Randall was ad- 



mitted a partner with S. & W. Foster, under the 
firm name of S. & W. Foster & Co., for the trans- 
action of a general cotton business ; this firm was 
dissolved in 1866. In 1866 he formed a partner- 
ship with his sons and Addison Q. Fisher, under 
the firm name of Samuel Foster & Co., for the 
transaction of a general cotton business ; this firm 
was dissolved in 1877. He was a Director in the 
Third National Bank and the Pawtuxet Bank for 
many years, and was also President of the First 
National Bank of Providence for a number of 
years. He sold out his interest in the Williamsville 
Manufacturing Company in 1890 to his partners, 
the Messrs. Atwood, grandchildren of his first 
partner, John Atwood. He is now a large owner in 
the Central Mills Company of Southbridge, Mass , 
manufacturers of cotton goods. He retired from 
active business in 1890. He is the senior member 
of the Providence Board of Trade, and has for 
many years been a member of the Squantum and 
other clubs, the Rhode Island Veteran Association 
and the Rhode Island Historical Society, and dur- 
ing his life he has been connected with many 
industries of various kinds as owner and manager, 
all of which has made his life one of great activity. 
He is the only survivor of a family of nine children. 
He married, June 10, 1841, Miss Priscilla Smith, 
sister of Amos D. and Gov. James Y. Smith ; she 
died March 24, 1867. He married. May 13, 1880, 
Mrs. Aliph Elizabeth Brinley Cornell, who died Aug- 
ust 21, 1890. He had six children by his first wife : 
Ella Mitchell, who died April 24, 1878, Walter 
Smith, Louis Tucker, Frederic Leeds, James 
Herbert and Clara Dennison Foster. 



FARRALLY, Wiilliam Henry, co-editor and pro- 
prietor of the Bristol, R. I., Phoenix, was born in 
Pittsfield, Mass., April 2, 1859, the son of John and 
Juliette E. (Rogers) Farrally. His father was born 
in the northern part of Ireland and caine to this 
country when a young man ; he served during the 
war of the Rebellion and was honorably discharged. 
On his mother's side he comes from old Revolution- 
ary stock; his maternal grandfather was Captain 
Joseph Rogers, who served in the war of 181 2, and 
and his great-grandfather. Captain Joseph Rogers, 
served in the war of the Revolution. He received 
his early education in the public schools, and in the 
high school of Great Barrington, Mass. He learned 
the printing trade when fifteen years of age in the 



32 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



office of the Berkshire Courier at Great Barrington, 
where he served seven years, and then accepted 
the foremanship of the NewMilford Gazette, at New 
Milford, Conn. He was general superintendent 
there for ten years, and in September 1892 pur- 




WM. H. FARRALLY. 

chased a half interest in the Saturday Record of 
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and was business manager for 
two years. In November 1894 he purchased the 
Bristol, R.I., Phoenix, in connection with his brother, 
Joseph Franklin Farrally, who had had a thorough 
training in the business with Clark M. Bryan of Spring- 
field, Mass., and others. Since that time they have 
changed the Phoenix from a weekly to a semi-week- 
ly, and greatly enlarged and improved the business 
in all its departments, being the pioneers of semi- 
weekly journalism in the state. He has never en- 
gaged in politics or public life, preferring to devote 
himself strictly to a business career. He is a mem- 
ber of the executive committee of the Valley Club, 
a business men's club of New Milford, Conn. In 
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he was a member of the Fifth 
District Editorial Association. He is a member of 
the Southern Rhode Island Press Club and of the 
Bristol Improvement Society. He married, October 
17, 1894, in St. Stephen's Church, Ridgefield, Conn., 
Miss Gertrude Adams Scott, daughter of ex-judge 
Hiram K. Scott of Ridgefield. 



FRANCIS, E. Charles, banker, was born in 
Utica, N. Y , September 6, 185 1, son of Rev. Eben 
and Mary (Hunnewell) Francis. The Francis 
family is of old New England stock, Richard 
Francis having settled in Cambridge, Mass., in the 
early part of the seventeenth century, and died 
there on March 24, 168.6 The family were promi- 
nent in Medford, Beverly and Cambridge, and 
served with distinction in the Revolutionary war. 
He received his early education in the common 
schools and adopted banking as a business. In 
1870 he became a clerk in the Woonsocket National 
Bank. He is now assistant cashier and member of 
the board of investment of the Woonsocket Insti- 
tution for Savings. He has held numerous offices 
of trust and honor. He was Colonel on the per- 
sonal staff of Gov. A. H. Littlefield. in 1880-81- 
82. He has been an assessor of taxes for Woon- 
socket since 1885, was a member of the Court 
House Commission in Woonsocket in 1891, and 
was elected Senator in the General Assembly from 
Woonsocket in 1894-95. He is a thirty-second 
degree Mason, a Knight Templar, a member of the 




E. CHARLES FRANCIS. 

Military Order of the Loyal Legion, of the Sons of 
the American Revolution, and an associate member 
of Smith Post, G. A. R In politics he is a Repub- 
lican. He married, October 20, 1886, Miss Gertrude 
A. Nourse ; they have no children. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



33 



GOFF, Isaac Lewis, President and Director of 
real estate and investment companies, Providence, 
was born in Taunton, Mass., August 29, 1852, son 
of David F. and Clarissa D. (Stacey) Goff. He is 
of English descent and his ancestors were among 
the first settlers of New England in the Old Colony. 
Four of his ancestors on both the paternal and ma- 
ternal side were in the military service of the 
Colonies during the war of the Revolution. He re- 
ceived his early education in the common schools 
of Rehoboth, Mass., and at Bryant & Stratton's 
Commercial College in Providence. He entered 




ISAAC L. GOFF. 

the real estate office of William D. Peirce in Provi- 
dence, in 1872, and continued there as clerk until 
1876, when he engaged in the real estate business 
on his own account, which he has since continued. 
He was prominent in the organization of the Home 
Investment Company, one of the most successful 
real estate and investment companies established 
in Rhode Island, which began business in 1891, 
with Governor D. Russell Brown as its first Presi- 
dent. He has been the General Manager of the 
Home Investment Company from its organization 
to the present time. He is now President of the 
Isaac L. Goff Company and the People's Trust 
Company, and is the Treasurer of the Seaconnet 
Point Land Company and Director in several finan- 



cial institutions. He has taken an active part in 
military and political life. He joined the United 
Train of Artillery in 1880, and was promoted to the 
offices of Second Lieutenant, Paymaster and Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel, which latter position he held until 
he was appointed by Governor Wetmore in 1885 an 
aide-de-camp on his personal staff with the rank of 
Colonel. He organized the Plumed Knights in 
1889 and was chosen the first Commander, which 
office he still holds. In politics he has always been 
a Republican and has been actively engaged in 
political work since his majority. He was Secre- 
tary and Treasurer of the Republican State Com- 
mittee from 1886 to 1892. In 1888 he was an 
alternate delegate to the Republican National Con- 
vention and in 1892 was a delegate to the National 
Convention at Minneapolis. He was the messenger 
to carry the vote of the State to Washington at 
the national election in 1892. He has always de- 
clined to be a candidate for public office. He 
married, in 1875, Miss Ada J. Richards, daughter of 
William R. Richards, a manufacturing jeweler of 
Providence ; they have four children : William 
David, Josephine A., Lillian L. and Isaac L. Goff, Jr. 



GEORGE, Charles Henry, merchant and 
banker, Providence, was born in Foxboro, Mass., 
July 14, 1839, the son of Thomas M. and Rebecca 
S. (Farrington) George. He comes of good old 
New England stock, his ancestors having emigrated 
from England in the seventeenth century and set- 
tled in what is now the state of Maine, then a 
province of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He 
received his early education in the public schools 
of Foxboro, and at twelve years of age entered a 
hardware store in Providence, where he remained 
until he was fifteen. He then attended Bristol 
County Academy in Taunton, Mass., for a year and 
a half, after which he returned to his old position 
where he remained until he was twenty. He then 
started in the hardware business for himself, and 
since that time the firm of C. H. George & Com- 
pany has been among the most prominent in its 
line in the state. He was elected a Director of 
the Roger Williams National Bank in 1873 and its 
President in 1879, and is a Director in several 
other banking institutions. He was President of 
the Board of Trade in 1891 and 1892. In 1887 he 
was appointed by President Cleveland, Postmaster 
of Providence, and held the office until July 1895, 
several years after the expiration of his commission. 



34 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



He is a member of the Congregational Club, and 
was its President in 1890 and 1892. He is a mem- 
ber of the Providence Press Club, the Marine 
Order, and various social and fraternal associations 
In poHtics he is a Democrat. He married, April 




CHAS. H. GEORGE. 

14, 1861, Miss Clarissa Jackson, who died Septem- 
ber 4, 1880. He has three children: Edward A., 
now minister of the Congregational Church of New- 
port, Vt. ; Grace T., wife of Wm. C. Dart, and 
Margaret Emerson George. 



GARVIN, Lucius Fayeite Clark, physician and 
surgeon, was born in Knoxville, Tenn., November 
13, 1841, son of James, Jr., and Sarah A. (Gunn) 
Garvin. His paternal ancestors were among the 
early settlers of Vermont. His maternal ancestors, 
including the Gunn, Montague and Dickenson 
families, were settlers of Massachusetts and of Eng- 
lish descent. He received his early education in 
the public schools of Enfield and Sunderland, Mass. 
He fitted for college in the New Garden School, 
now Guilford College, near Greenboro, N. C, having 
previously attended a private school in Greenboro, 
and entered Amherst College, Mass., at the age of 
sixteen. He was graduated in the class of 1862, 
thirty-one years after the graduation of his father 



from the same institution. In the autumn of 1862 
he taught a public school in Ware, Mass., having 
previously taught in Sunderland during a part of his 
senior year in college. Immediately upon attaining 
his majority he enlisted in Company E Fifty-irrst 
Massachusetts Volunteers, recruited in Worcester 
county. The regiment served in North Carolina, 
under General Foster. The march to Goldsboro, 
the burning of the bridge at that place to cut off 
the communications from the south with Lee's 
army, and the engagements at Kingston, Whitehall 
and Goldsboro were the chief features of his experi- 
ence in the army. After the mustering out of his 
regiment he taught a select school in Leverett, 
Mass., where he began the study of medicine. Sub- 
sequently, he was a student with Dr. Sylvanus 
Clapp of Pawtucket. He was graduated from the 
Harvard Medical School, March 13, 1867, having 
passed a year prior to graduation as Interne at the 
Boston City Hospital. In May 1867 he began the 
practice of medicine in Lonsdale, R. I , where he 
has continued to reside and actively practice since. 




L. F. C GARVIN. 

He has always taken an active interest in public 
affairs. He was a Republican until 1876, supporting 
Lincoln and Grant for the presidency, but in that 
year advocated the election of Samuel J. Tilden, 
and has ever since acted with the Democratic party. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



35 



Since 1880 he has been active in the propaganda of 
what he believes to be much needed reforms in the 
state. Beginning with 1883 he has been elected 
ten times to represent the town of Cumberland in 
the General Assembly, and is a member of the 
present House of Representatives. During this 
period he has aided in the enactment of the follow- 
ing eight popular measures, four of which were in- 
troduced by himself : The Ten Hour law, the Labor 
Bureau, the Extension of Suffrage, the Australian 
Ballot, Weekly Payments, Free Text-Books, Plu- 
rality Elections, and Factory Inspection. He re- 
gards proportional representation as the most 
important organic reform, and the single tax as the 
most important social reform, within the bounds of 
practical politics. For the past fifteen years he has 
urgently advocated a complete revision of the state 
constitution by means of a convention of the people ; 
but unless that is to be held at an early date, he 
favors as the next constitutional amendment the 
granting to registry voters in cities the right to vote 
for councilmen. He regards his efforts for the 
extension of the suffrage in Rhode Island from 1880 
to 1888 as his greatest life work. He was the 
Democratic candidate for Congress from the second 
district in Rhode Island at the election in 1894. 
Upon the passage of the Medical Examiner Act in 
1884 he was appointed by Governor Bourn, Medi- 
cal Examiner for the Seventh District, which em- 
braces the town of Cumberland, and in 1890 was 
reappointed for six years by Governor Davis. He 
is a member of the Rhode Island Medical Society, 
of the Providence Medical Association, of the Grand 
Army of the Republic (Ballou Post, Central Falls) 
and of the Bell Street Chapel Society of Providence. 
He married, December 23, 1869, Miss Lucy W. 
Southmayd of Middletown, Conn. ; they have three 
children : Ethel, Norma and Florence Garvin. 



HARRIS, George Albert, physician and surgeon, 
was born in North Scituate, R. I., May 19, 1855, the 
son of James Arnold and Elizabeth Wheeler 
(Potter) Harris. He is descended from Gideon 
Harris, one of the earliest settlers of the town of 
Scituate. Gideon was born March 15, 1714, and was 
the great-grandson of Thomas Harris, who in company 
with his brother William, Roger Williams, and others, 
sailed from Bristol, England, in the ship Lyon, 
William Peirce master, December i, 1630, landing at 
Nantasket, Mass., on the 5th of February following; 
he settled in Providence in 1638 and died there in 



1686. Dr. Harris received his early education at 
Lapham Institute, North Scituate, graduating in the 
class of 1873. After graduation he taught school 
for a year, and then passed two years in railroad 
surveying under Edward Everett, a nephew of 
the statesman of the same name. He began the 
study of medicine in 1876 with his maternal uncle. 
Dr. Albert Potter of Chepachet, and graduated from 
the Columbia College Medical School (the College 
of Physicians and Surgeons), New York, in the 
class of 1880. He first settled at Greenville, R. I, 
and remained there nearly a year, when he was 




GEO. A, HARRIS. 

called to Chepachet on account of the illness of his 
preceptor, and has remained there since. He has 
been a member of the school committee for nine 
years. He has been Medical Examiner for District 
No. 3, Providence county, since 1884. He is a 
member of the Rhode Island Medical Society, of 
the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and of the 
Rhode Island Medico-Legal Society. He has al- 
ways been greatly interested in musical affairs and 
has been chorister of the Chepachet Church for the 
past seven years. He was converted under the 
ministry of Rev. Richard K. Wickett. He has been 
treasurer of the church since 1887, and deacon 
since 1893. He has been active in the Christian 
Endeavor movement. In politics he is a Repub- 



36 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



lican. A careful and conscientious practitioner of 
medicine, he yet believes that the truest " Men of 
Progress " are those who work most industriously 
for the spiritual welfare of their fellowmen. He 
married, June 2, 1879, Miss Ella Louise Smith; 
they have had one child : Amey Elizabeth, born 
and died June 6, 1889. 



HEMENWAY, Herbert Lewis, late Resident 
Manager in Providence for Norcross Brothers, con- 
tractors and builders of Worcester, Mass., was born 
March 2, 1864, in North Leverett, Mass., the son of 




H. L. HEMENWAY. 

Elihu and Hepsibath Mary (Loring) Hemenway. 
His ancestry on the father's and mother's side were 
of good old New England stock, of EngHsh descent 
with some admixture of Dutch and Irish. He re- 
ceived his early education in the "little red school- 
house " at North Leverett, the high school at 
Montague, Mass., and Powers Institute at Ber- 
nardston, Mass. He graduated from Eastman's 
National Business College, Poughkeepsie, N. Y., in 
1 88 1. He worked on his father's farm at North 
Leverett, when not attending school, until 1880. 
In 1880 and part of 1881 he was employed in the New 
Home Sewing Machine Company's factory. After 
his course in the business college he worked as an 
apprentice at the carpenter's trad? with J. L. Carll, 



of Greenfield, Mass. In the winter of 1882-83 ^^ 
was bookkeeper for Emil Weissbrod, manufacturer 
of pocketbooks at Montague, Mass., and in the sum- 
mer of 1883 was employed as a carpenter by John 
Huxley, of Northampton, Mass. In September 
1883 he entered the employ of Bartlett Brothers, 
contractors and builders, of East Whately, Mass., 
afterwards North Adams, Mass., to complete his 
mechanical education. In 1885 he became foreman 
carpenter for the firm in the construction of the 
Belchertown Library. He was superintendent of 
construction of the Dedham Library in 1887-88, 
severing his connection in June 1888 to enter the 
employ of Norcross Brothers, and superintended 
the construction of the station at Springfield of 
the Boston & Albany Railroad in 1888-91, and of the 
Youth's Companion Building, Boston, in 1891-92. 
He has been resident manager of the firm in 
Providence since 1892, and superintended the con- 
struction of the Industrial Trust Company's build- 
ing, the Telephone building, a large building for 
the Brown & Sharpe Company, and other important 
works. On December 14, 1895, he terminated his 
relations with Norcross Brothers, and intends entering 
into the building business on his own account at an 
early date. He is a member of Constellation Lodge, 
A. F. & A. M., Dedham, Mass. ; Royal Arch 
Chapter, Providence ; Providence Council, R. & 
S. M. ; St. John's Commandery, Knights Templar ; 
Providence Chapter, Order of Eastern Star, and 
Palestine Temple, A. O. N. M. S. He is a member 
of the Providence Athletic Club. In politics he is 
an Independent Republican. He married, March 
28, 1889, Miss Alice Maud Spaulding ; they have 
two children : Carlotta Effie and Loring Spaulding 
Hemenway. 



HEYDON, Henry Darling, merchant, Crompton, 
was born in Coventry, R. I., December 25, 1851, son 
of David and Remima C. (Johnston) Heydon. 
He is a lineal descendant of William Heydon, 
who emigrated from England to this country 
about 1630, and his ancestors took part in the 
Colonial and Revolutionary wars. He received 
his early education in the public schools of Provi- 
dence, and began his business career at an early 
age as clerk in a store in Providence, where he 
remained for two years, and then took a special 
course at Mount Pleasant Academy. He then 
served as clerk in a store in Olneyville for a 
number of years, when he engaged in the dry- 
goods and grocery business. Later he disposed of 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



37 



his business to take charge of a large estabhshment 
in the same place. In 1874 he removed to Cromp- 
ton, R. I., where he assumed charge in behalf of 
the creditors of a large general store in that village. 
The promising outlook induced him, six months 




HENRY D. HEYDON. 

later, to form a copartnership with Daniel W. 
Batchelder to purchase the business, in which 
they have since continued. He has taken an active 
part in public life. He was Postmaster at Cromp- 
ton from 1883 to 1887, a member of the school 
committee since 1883, and Town Auditor of 
Warwick five years. He was appointed aid-de- 
camp with the rank of Colonel by Governor Taft 
in 1888-89, and by Governor Ladd 1889-92. He 
was a member of the committee to secure a per- 
manent campground for the state militia, and 
also a member of the committee to procure a site 
for a state armory in Providence. He is a member 
and Past Master of Manchester Lodge, A. F. & A. 
M., was High Priest for three years of Landmark 
Chapel Royal Arch Masons, and member of St. 
John's Commandery. He was a Representative 
in the General Assembly from Warwick in 1879-80 
and since 1888, and Chairman of the Committee on 
Finance. In politics he is a Republican. He 
married, March 16, 1881, Miss Charlotte A. Booth ; 
they have two children : Howard Raymond and 
Wright David Heydon. 



HILL, Frank, Ashaway, was born in Utica, N. Y., 
June 28, 1 86 1, the son of Frank and Mary (Greene) 
Hill. His paternal grandfather was Horace Hill 
of Bennington, Vt., and his maternal grandfather 
was Wm. B. Greene of Westerly, R. I. He received 
his early education in the public schools of Inde- 
pendence, Alleghany county, N. Y., and graduated 
from Alfred University, Alfred, N. Y., in 1883 with 
the degree of A. B. He taught school for one year 
at North Loup, Neb., and for three years he was 
principal of the Hopkinton grammar school, one 
year before graduating and two years afterward. He 
then gave up teaching and became Cashier of the 
Ashaway National Bank, and Treasurer of the Asha- 
way Savings Bank, July i, 1885, which position he 
now holds. Outside of the banking business his 
main interests have been with the public schools, 
and for the past eight years he has been Chairman 
of the Board of School Trustees of the town. He 
is now serving for the third term as the Representa- 
tive of Hopkinton in the General Assembly, and 
is Chairman of the Committee on Education. In 




FRANK HILL, 

politics he is a Republican with independent 
tendencies. He married, October 6, 1885, Miss 
Emma Greene, daughter of M. J. Greene, of Alfred, 
N. Y. ; they have three children : F>elyn Irene, Mary 
Hulda and Frank Maxsom Hill. 



3« 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



HILL, Lester Seneca, physician and surgeon, 
was born in Foster, R. L, December 19, 1843, son of 
Jirah and Aniey Whipple (Ormsbee) Hill. He re- 
ceived his early education in the district schools and 
his physical training on the paternal farm, where 




L. S. HILL. 

" the trees grew big and the rocks grew bigger." 
During the civil war he enlisted, September 1 861, at 
the age of seventeen, in Battery E, First Rhode 
Island Light Artillery, and served in First Division, 
Third Corps, Army of the Potomac, till December 
1863, when he was appointed Second Lieutenant 
Company F, Fourteenth Rhode Island Heavy Ar- 
tillery, serving with this regiment in the Department 
of the Gulf until October 1865. He was at the siege 
of Yorktown, the battle of Williamsburg, the Seven 
Days' battles before Richmond, White Oak Swamp, 
Malvern Hill, Second Bull Run, Chantilly, Freder- 
icksburg and Gettysburg. On the completion of 
his term of service he resumed his studies and grad- 
uated from Wesleyan Academy, Wilbraham, Mass., 
in 1870. He entered the Medical College of the 
University of the City of New York, and graduated 
in 1872 with the degree of M. D. He then com- 
menced the practice of medicine in Providence, 
where he has remained since. He has been a mem- 
ber of the School Committee of Providence for fif- 
teen years. He was elected a Member of the House 



of Representatives of the General Assembly in 
1872-73. He has been Grand Master of the Inde- 
pendent Order of Odd Fellows of Rhode Island, 
and is a member of the Grand Lodge and Grand 
Chapter A. F. & A. M. of Rhode Island. He was 
Medical Director of the Department of Rhode 
Island G. A. R. for three years. He is a member 
of the Massachusetts Commandery of Loyal Legion. 
In 1894 he was assistant surgeon-general of Rhode 
Island Militia, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. 
He is a member of the Society of the Sons of the 
American Revolution, and of the Rhode Island 
Medical Society. In politics he is a Republican. 



HORTON, Horace Fr.ancis, real estate dealer. 
Providence, was born in Rehoboth, Mass., Janu- 
ary 2, 1838, son of Ellis and Mary EHza (Craw) 
Horton. He received his early education in the 
public schools and at Schofield's Commercial Col- 
lege, Providence. He first engaged in the grocery 
business in co-partnership with Major E. S. Horton, 




HORACE F, HORTON. 

from 1859 to 1861, and from 1864 to 1872 with 
Henry J. Anthony. From 1872 to the present time 
he has been engaged in the real estate, mortgage 
and insurance business, giving special attention to 
the development of land in the vicinity of Provi- 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



39 



dence. He has taken an active part in the rehgious 
work of the Baptist society, and has been for twen- 
ty-three years Superintendent of the Sunday School 
of the Jefferson Street Church. He was President 
of the Rhode Island Baptist Sunday School Con- 
vention in 1878 and 1879, and was President of the 
Rhode Island Baptist Social Union in 1893. He is 
a director in the executive board of the Rhode 
Island Baptist State Convention. He married, Jan- 
uary 15, 1862, Miss Susan M. Anthony; they have 
six children : Henry F., Annie M., Clarence H., Fred 
E., Marion L. and Laura E. Horton. 



HOWARD, Hiram, manufacturer of silverware, 
was born in West Woodstock, Windham county. 




wholesale jewelry business until the breaking out 
of the war in 1861. September 18, 1861, he enlisted 
in the Second Regiment of Artillery, New York 
Volunteers, serving at first as Second Lieutenant, 
and afterward as First Lieutenant and Adjutant. 
He remained in the army until July 1864, nearly 
three years, when he returned to New York, and 
again engaged in the jewelry business. In 1881 
he returned to Providence and embarked in the 
manufacture of jewelry, which he conducted suc- 
cessfully for several years, and then engaged in the 
manufacture of sterling silverware. At the present 
time he is president of the Howard Sterling Silver- 
ware Company, Providence, his son Stephen C. 
being associated with him in the management. He 
has taken an active interest in public affairs 
and in the social and economic questions of the day. 
In May 1877 the New York Free Trade Club was 
formed and he became a member in July of the 
same year, retaining his membership until it was 
merged into the Reform Club of New York, of which 
he is consequently one of the oldest members. In 
1890-91 he was elected a Representative to the 
General Assembly from Providence on the Demo- 
cratic ticket, and in 1889 was the candidate of his 
party for the Mayoralty. He was appointed and 
served as a member of the Rhode Island Commission 
to the Columbian Exposition at Chicago. In politics 
he has always been a staunch Democrat, as were his 
father and grandfather before him. He is a mem- 
ber of the Advance Club, the Providence Athletic 
Association, the Providence Press Club, the Reform 
Club of New York, and other societies and organ- 
izations. 



HIRAM HOWARD. 

Conn., November 26, 1834, son of Warner and Mary 
(Taft) Howard. He is descended from good old 
New England stock, and is connected with the Taft, 
Olney, Knowlton and Ellis families of Massachusetts, 
Connecticut and Rhode Island. He received his 
early education in the public schools of his native 
town, at the academies at Ashford and South Wood- 
stock in the same county, and at Dr. Cook's private 
school for boys in Webster, Mass. At the age of 
eighteen he left school and settled in Providence, 
where he commenced his business career. In 1857 
he went to New York, where he engaged in the 



HOLBROOK, Albert, manufacturer, Provi- 
dence, was born in Providence, February 5, 1813, 
son of Abel and Sally (Hopkins) Holbrook. He 
was one of the originators of the firm of A. & C.W. 
Holbrook, manufacturers of raw-hide goods, princi- 
pally at first of loom pickers, but developing into 
numerous other articles composed of that material. 
This business is at the present time managed by 
his three sons, George A., Albert, Jr., and Charles 
W. Holbrook 2d. At its origin, in 1842, the firm 
name was the same as to-day, the Charles W. Hol- 
brook associated with him being his brother, about 
six years his junior. His paternal ancestral line, so 
far as known, starts from Thomas Holbrook, who 
emigrated from England in 1635 and settled in 
Weymouth, Mass., and runs through John, Ichabod, 



40 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 




,^M^<r}/s^^n^p^'. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



41 



David,' Ichabod, Nathaniel, Abel and Albert Hol- 
brook. The ancestral home was soon changed to 
Braintree, Mass., where Abel was born April 5, 
1788. About the year 181 2 Abel removed to Prov- 
idence, where he became acquainted with Sally 
Hopkins and made her his wife. Sally's ancestral 
line ran from Thomas Hopkins, son of William and 
Joanna (Arnold) Hopkins, born in England, April 
7, 1616, and continuing through Thomas, Amos, 
Uriah, Sally and Albert. Four children were born 
to Abel and Sally: Albert, February 5, 1813; 
Harriet, June 23, 1814; Charles, July 21, 1816; 
who died in childhood ; and Charles William, Jan- 
uary 6, 1819. Mr. Holbrook's early life was very 
inauspicious, being left fatherless when six years 
old and motherless before the age of twelve. In 
his twelfth year, November 1824, he was sent to 
live with Benjamin Lewis, who had married a rela- 
tive, with the understanding that he was to serve an 
apprenticeship with Mr. Lewis, learning the trade 
as a mason. This arrangement was early, and it 
might be said prematurely, entered upon, for in the 
early summer following his twelfth birthday he was 
found engaged as a bricklayer on a building being 
erected at the North End in Providence, by Wil- 
liam Randall. This was followed up by a continu- 
ance in the various branches of the mason trade, 
which then embraced many features now divided 
up into separate and special pursuits and vocations. 
For about ten months in 1827-8 he labored upon the 
Providence Arcade, and at the time of this writing 
(1895) is probably the only living person who was 
engaged in this department of its construction. 
Among other prominent buildings in the construc- 
tion of which he was engaged was the Newport 
Steam Factory, in the summer of 1831, followed in 
the autumn of that year by a short service on the 
Number One Mill of the Lonsdale Company in 
Smithiield. In 1833, April 30, at the solicitation 
of his uncle, Benjaman Holbrook, who was a mem- 
ber of the firm of J. Cunhff & Co., manufacturers of 
loom pickers, he entered into their employment 
and continued in this position until August 1842, 
when he associated with his brother, as before 
noted. This connection lasted until June 1868, 
when Charles retired, and Albert's sons, as hereto- 
fore stated, joined with their father in the contin- 
uance of the business. Advancing age with its 
infirmities prompted his retirement from the firm 
after his three sons were established, but his per- 
sonal interest in its growth and success remains un- 
abated. He has also been greatly interested in 



genealogical and historical matters, and for the past 
twenty years or more has devoted much time to re- 
search and investigation in this line of study, em- 
bodying many of the results of his labors in publi- 
cations of various kinds, through the press and peri- 
odicals as well as in pamphlet and book form. His 
efforts in this line of work have been of great public 
value and widespread interest, generally taking a 
broad range, covering a large field, and his services 
have been ever and freely at the command of any 
and all inquirers who have approached him with 
general or specific queries relating to his favorite 
subjects in which they were interested. That such 
service has been keenly appreciated is evidenced 
by the many authors whose acknowledgments ap- 
pear in their publications, and by the multitude of 
letters of inquiry he has received from different 
persons resident in the state and abroad. The 
class of historical matter, outside the genealogical, 
to which he has especially devoted himself, is mainly 
confined to details pertaining to the North End, 
in Providence. A serial of several numbers, en- 
titled " Ancient North End Landmarks, by an Old 
Resident," covered a large field and showed up the 
forgotten origin of many old homesteads, with de- 
tails of the personal history of some of the people 
connected with them. In the genealogical field, 
one of his most interesting works was published in 
1881, entitled "One Line of the Hopkins Family," 
covering the line of Governor Stephen Hopkins and 
his brother the Commodore, but not the one from 
which the author descended ; although compara- 
tively brief, it embraces nearly every male member 
belonging to the line that bore the name of Hop- 
kins, and all females born of that line. The line 
to which the author belongs were more numerous 
— excessively so ; he intended to follow this out, 
but the task was beyond his strength, with his num- 
erous other cares, although under the title of 
"Notes on the Hopkins Family" he contributed 
several articles to the Narragansett Historical Reg- 
ister. At an early period in his life he was very 
familiar with the famous Commodore's family then 
living, and was frequently sent to the old homestead 
on errands, briefly alluded to in the genealogical 
work referred to. As his grandfather Uriah Hop- 
kins and the Commodore were second cousins, the 
association between the author's people and the 
Commodore's descendants continued until most of 
the latter had passed away. The subject of this 
sketch was married, January 8, 1838, to Miss Abby 
Olney Angell, who was born June 23, 181 1, and 



42 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



died December 24, 1886; five children were born 
to them: George Abel, October 14, 1838, grad- 
uated at Brown University, class of 1861 ; Frank 
Pinckney, May 14, 1842, died young; Albert, Jr., 
October 7, 1845 > Charles William, September 10, 
1848, and Uriah Hopkins Holbrook, November 10, 
1850, graduated at Brown University 1874 and at 
Harvard Medical School in 1877, entered into 
practice as a physician in Providence with promis- 
ing success, but died suddenly May 8, 1884. 



HORTON, Jeremiah Wheeler, furniture manu- 
facturer and dealer, Newport, was born in Rehoboth, 




J. W. HORTON, 

Mass., April 8, 1844, son of Tamerlane Wheeler 
and Amanda (Walker) Horton. He received his 
early education in the public and private schools of 
Rehoboth. He lived on a farm until he was 
eighteen years of age, and then went to Perryville, 
Mass., to learn the trade of wood-turning. Two 
years later he came to Newport, and was employed 
by J. L. & G. A. Hazard, furniture manufacturers; 
he remained in their employ until 1884, when the 
firm dissolved and he was appointed to settle the 
business, which occupied a year. He then en- 
gaged in the business with G. A. Hazard, under the 
firm name of Hazard & Horton. Eight years later 



he purchased Mr. Hazard's interest, and took F. A. 
Ward as a partner, under the firm name of J. H. 
Horton & Co., furniture manufacturers and dealers, 
which still carries on the business. He is a mem- 
ber of the First Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
was its Treasurer for eighteen years. He is chair- 
man of its board of trustees, and Superintendent 
of the Sunday School, a position he has filled for a 
quarter of a century. He was a member of the 
School Board of Newport for six years, and served 
on the Board of Overseers of the Poor and Asylum 
for several terms. He was a member of the Board 
of Aldermen for two years, and Mayor of Newport 
in 1893, declining to accept a re-nomination. He 
was a Representative in the General Assembly for 
three years, and in 1894 was nominated for Senator 
but declined. He served the state in its militia for 
twenty-six consecutive years as a member of the 
Newport Artillery Company, and held commissions 
as Captain, Major, Lieutenant-Colonel and Colonel, 
and is now on the retired list. He was master of 
St. Paul's Lodge A. F. & A. M. for three terms, 
is a member of Washington Commandery Knights 
Templar, and is a. Past Grand of Rhode Island 
Lodge L O. O. F., and was its Financial Secretary 
for fifteen years. He is a member of the Busi- 
ness Men's Association, the Newport Historical 
Society and the Redwood Library and Athenseum. 
He is President of the Coddington Savings Bank. 
He is President of the G. K. Warren Post Associates 
Grand Army of the Republic. He is a member of 
the Rhode Island Hospital Corporation. In politics 
he is a Republican. He is not married. 



HIGBEE, Edward Wyman, editor and printer, 
Newport, was born in Newport, N. H., December 
26, 1854, the son of John Hitchcock and Adeline 
(Emmons) Higbee. His ancestors on the paternal 
side were among the early settlers of Connecticut, 
and his great-great-grandfather Stephen and great- 
grandfather Charles served in the war of the Revo- 
lution. On the maternal side his ancestors were 
among the early settlers of New Hampshire He 
received his education at New Hampton Institute, 
New Hampton, N. H. In 1871-72 he was em- 
ployed in the Smith & Wesson Arms \\'orks at 
Springfield, Mass. He then learned the printer's 
trade and worked on Newport and Providence 
newspapers. He was the Newport correspondent 
of the Boston Globe for upwards of twelve years. 
He is now associate editor of the Newport Mercury, 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



43 



and President of the Newport Mercury Publishing 
Company. He represented the second ward in the 
Newport Board of Aldermen from 1889 to 1891 in- 
clusive. In 1893 he was unanimously elected by 
the Newport City Council a member of and clerk 




E. W. HIGBEE. 

to the Board of License Commissioners. In 1895 
he was elected a Representative in the General As- 
sembly from Newport. He is a member of Red- 
wood Lodge Knights of Pythias, of Newport Asso- 
ciates N. M. R. A., Malbone Lodge N. E. O. P., 
Gen. G. K. Warren Associates and Treasurer of the 
Lawrence Club. In politics he is a Republican. 
He married, in 1883, Miss Alice E. Thompson; 
they have three children : Alice Francis, Edward 
Wyman and Margarita Emmons Higbee. 



JACKSON, Charles Akerman, artist and portrait 
painter, Providence, was born in Jamaica Plain, 
Mass., August 13, 1857, son of Charles E. and Caro- 
line E. (Akerman) Jackson. His paternal ancestors 
were William and Sarah Jackson of Portsmouth, 
N. H., and on the maternal side Charles and Lucy 
E. Akerman of Providence. He received his early 
education in the public schools of Boston (Jamaica 
Plain). He entered the wholesale drygoods trade 
at the age of sixteen, as stock boy, and at twenty 



was a traveling salesman, traveling and visiting the 
largest cities in the West and South. He traveled 
extensively as road salesman, until he decided to 
adopt the art of portrait painting as a profession. 
He always had this predilection for art, and at the 
age of ten painted a portrait of his mother ; but 
his parents did not favor the profession for a liveli- 
hood. Having strong musical tastes, they allowed 
him tuition on the church organ under W. J. D. 
Leavitt of Boston. At one time he thought he 
would make this his profession ; but he was passion- 
ately fond of portraits, and during his spare time 
kept up his practice of painting and drawing. 
Many spare moments during his travels he spent 
in visiting studios, and in observing artists of repu- 
tation at their work ; also in private study with 
artists, among whom he greatly values the teaching 
of his friend, John N. Arnold. He also studied 
numerous text books, among which he considers 
those of Rubens and Bouvier the most valuable. 
With many misgivings, he commenced to devote a 
portion of his time to portrait painting ; and soon 




C. A. JACKSON 

after, in 1 891, he began devoting his entire time to 
the painting of portraits, and has met with un- 
questionable success. His style is refined and 
chaste, and his portraits of women and children 
excel in that subtle delicacy of flesh tones so 



44 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



charming to the eye and so alluring to the senses. 
His portraits of men are carefully finished and 
truthfully painted, and show a positive avoidance of 
the " impressionist " school. Confining himself 
solely to portraiture, and having inborn that natural 
gift, so rare, of obtaining a likeness, it is but natural 
that the demand for his portraits should be large 
and that demand constantly increasing. Among 
his more prominent portraits are those of S. N. 
Lougee, ex-President of the West Side Club; Mayor 
Frank F. Olney, for the City Hall ; City Messenger 
Edward S. Rhodes, for the City Hall ; John Whipple 
Potter Jenks, for Brown University; Stephen W. 
Griffin, Town Clerk of Coventry, for Town Hall ; 
Col. W. W. Brown, for the Infantry Veteran As- 
sociation ; Prof. Thomas Metcalf for State Normal 
University, 111. ; Albert Metcalf, Treasurer Dennison 
Tag Company, Boston, and Dr. A. J. Gordon of 
Boston. He is a member of Suffolk Council Royal 
Arcanum of Boston, and also a member of the West 
Side Club of Providence. 



JACKSON, Frank Hussey, attorney-at-law. Provi- 
dence, was born at Nobleboro, Lincoln county. Me., 
July II, 1843, son of Joseph Jr., and Arietta G. 
(Flagg) Jackson. He is the eldest of nine children. 
His father was the son of Joseph Jackson, and he 
was the son of Captain Jackson, a Revolutionary 
soldier, whose father came from the north of Ire- 
land. His mother was the daughter of John Flagg, 
and he was the son of Rev. Samuel Flagg of Boston, 
Mass., a Revolutionary soldier, who was in the 
battle of Bunker Hill, and continued with the army 
until the British surrendered at Yorktown. His 
parents removed to Jefferson, Me., when he was 
about a year old, and lived on a small farm. His 
father was a farmer and ship carpenter. He at- 
tended the common schools and high school at 
Jefferson. After he was twelve years old he worked 
on the farm and attended school until 1861, when 
he worked for a neighboring farmer for six dollars a 
month during the summer season, attending school 
the next winter. In the summer of 1862 he worked 
on a farm for nine dollars a month, and in the winter 
of 1862 and 1863 taught school for fifteen dollars a 
month. In the fall of 1863 he entered Lincoln 
Academy, Newcastle, Me., receiving his education 
at that institution, and supporting himself by teach- 
ing school. In 1856 he entered the law office of 
Henry Farrington, Esq., Waldoboro, Me., and on 
the eighth day of May, 1867, entered the law office 



of Hon. Lorenzo Clay, at Gardiner, Me. ; was ad- 
mitted to the Kennebec bar, November 1867. He 
taught school the following winter and summer of 
1868, was nominated for Clerk of Courts for Lin- 
coln county on the Democratic ticket and received 
the largest vote of any of. the candidates on the 
same ticket, only lacking thirty-four votes of an 
election in a total vote of over five thousand. Ii> 
September 1869 he opened a law office at Hallo- 
well, Me., and was City Solicitor of Hallowell from 
1870 to 1878. He supported himself all the time 
he was at Lincoln Academy and a law student by 




F, H, JACKSON. 

teaching school, and received no aid from any one. 
January i, 1879, he came to Providence and was 
admitted to the Rhode Island bar. He entered 
into partnership with Colonel Daniel R. Ballou 
and the co-partnership continued until July 1895, 
having during his practice at Hallowell and in 
Providence enjoyed a large and lucrative business. 
In 1880 he was admitted to the bar of the United 
States. In 1870 he was the junior counsel for the 
defendant in the celebrated case of State vs. Hos- 
well, who was indicted and tried at Augusta, Me., 
for the murder of John Laflin. The State was 
represented by Hon. Thomas B. Reed, then Attor- 
ney-General of Maine, and the Hon. Wm. P. 
\Vhitehouse, County Attorney, now Justice of the 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



45 



Supreme Court of Maine. The jury returned a 
verdict of manslaughter. In Providence he has 
been engaged in several important damage cases 
and has enjoyed a large practice. He never was a 
candidate for any office in Rhode Island ; he has 
been offered nominations by his party, but always 
declined them. He joined Olive Branch Lodge, 
I. O. O. F., in 1882 at Providence and is now a 
member of the order. He is a member of the 
Providence Athletic Association and the Rhode 
Island Business Men's Association. In politics he 
was always a Democrat, and took an active part 
in the election of 1884- 1888, the Congressional 
election of 1890 and the election of 1892. He 
married, January 27, 1875, Miss Ella A. Owen, of 
Waltham, Mass. ; they have two children : Frank 
H., Jr., and Walter N. Jackson. 



JONES, Augustine, Principal of the Friends' 
School, Providence, was born October 16, 1835, in 
China, Me , the son of Richard M and Eunice 
(Jones) Jones. His father's and mother's families, 
both Jones, were united some generations previous. 
The family, which is of Welch origin, settled in 
Hanover, Mass., where his great-great-grandfather, 
Thomas Jones, a Quaker, was residing in 1730. His 
father's mother was Susannah Dudley, descended 
directly from Thomas Dudley, the second Governor 
of Massachusetts, who fought as a captain under 
Henry IV of France. He received his early educa- 
tion at the district schools, at the Friends' School 
in Providence, and at Yarmouth Academy, Me. He 
entered Bovvdoin College and graduated in the class 
of i860, the largest the college ever had. Among 
his classmates were Hon. Thomas B. Reed, Hon. 
W. W. Thomas, United States Minister to Sweden, 
Judge Joseph W. Symonds of Portland, Me , and 
Gen. John M. Brown. As a boy he worked on the 
farm until the age of sixteen, and supported himself 
during his educational course by teaching district 
schools and academies. He entered the Harvard 
Law School and graduated in 1867. He was ad- 
mitted to the Suffolk bar the same year, and began 
practice in the office of Gov. John A. Andrew, with 
whom he had previously been a student for a year 
and a half. He continued in practice there for 
twelve years, until 1879, when he came to Provi- 
dence to become Principal of the Friends' School. 
He was administrator of the estate of Governor 
Andrew, and, with his associate Albert B. Otis, 
took into the office Hon. John F. Andrew, the eldest 



son of the governor, recently deceased, who remained 
there three years and a half, and with Mr. Otis re- 
tained the office after 1879. He had great fondness 
for the law and good success in it, but was induced to 
give himself for the remainder of his life to the in- 
struction of the rising generation. In 1874 he was 
named by John G. Whittier, at the request of Rev. 
James Freeman Clark, to deliver an essay at the 
Church of the Disciples, on the Society of Friends, 
it being the eighth in the series by different denomi- 
nations upon the "Universal Church." This essay 




AUGUSTINE JONES. 

was published, and vigorously attacked by certain 
orthodox Friends, but Whittier said, "There was 
nothing to be added to it or taken from it as a state- 
ment of Quaker doctrine." He read a paper on 
Nicholas Upsall before the New England Historical- 
Genealogical Society, which was printed in the 
Register for January 1880, and published in pam- 
phlet form. Whittier wrote of this, "Thou hast done 
an essential service to truth and justice." He was 
a Representative in the Massachusetts Legislature 
from Lynn, Mass, in 1878, but the next year was 
beaten by Gen. Benjamin F. Butler and the green- 
back craze in an exciting election after receiving 
more votes than in his previous election. In 1890 
he was sent by the Friends' Society and the Ameri- 
can Peace Society as a delegate to the London 



46 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Peace Congress. Regarding his work in the 
Friends' School, the following is an extract from the 
Phoenix Park, published by the students of the 
Friends' School in 1889 : "The school goes on, old 
students yielding their places to the new and ever 
carrying with them the remembrance of the kindly 
influence and true examples of the good old school. 
But a history of the school would not be complete 
without some mention of its Principal, to whose 
influence and energetic efforts its success in latter 
years has been due. Augustine Jones, LL. B., was 
formerly a law student of the late John A. Andrew, 
the War Governor of Massachusetts. In answer to 
the need of the school he became its Principal in 
1879, leaving a flourishing law practice in order to 
do so He devoted himself with all his powers to 
the advancement of the school, and the improve- 
ments of the last few years have been in a large 
part due to his earnest endeavors and personal 
assistance. His views of education are broad and 
liberal and his every thought is given to the ad- 
vancement and progress of the institution. Beloved 
as he is by all who have felt his influence, and 
honored by his pupils, I can only echo the wish of 
one of the alumni who has said : — 

" ' The old fifth century bad its saint, 
Augustine, pure and wise; 
May troops of students nurtured here 
His namesake canonize.' " 

By personal influence he has brought over 
one hundred thousand dollars in funds to the 
institution. He has published several pamphlets 
on moral, religious and other topics, among 
them one on " Parks and Tree-Lined Avenues ; " 
one on " Peace and Arbitration," which has 
been published in several editions, reaching more 
than one hundred and ten thousand copies, and 
largely distributed at home and abroad ; one on 
" Moses Brown," the founder of many institutions 
in Rhode Island, read in 1892 before the Rhode 
Island Historical Society and published by its 
direction ; and one the same year on Robert Burns, 
before the Advance Club, which drew the following 
letter from Mr. Whittier : — 

My Dear Friend : Newburyport, 3d mo. 7, 1892. 

I thank thee for sending thy eloquent and just address on 
Burns. Read it with great satisfaction. There is nothing 
illiberal or bigoted in it. Burns was not a Qualvcr; be had 
faults; but he did a noble work for Scotland and humanity. 
He sweetened an atmosphere bitter with Calvinism. Again 
thanking thee, I am ^^^ ^^^ ^^j^^^^ 

John G. Whittier. 



He is a member of the Society of Friends, of the 
Phi Beta Kappa Society, Bowdoin Chapter, New 
England Historical-Genealogical Society, President 
of the Advance Club and the Public Park Association 
of Providence. He has been a Republican from 
the start to the present time, having cast his first 
vote for Fremont. He married, October 10, 1867, 
Miss Caroline Alice Osborne ; they have two chil- 
dren : Caroline R. and William A. Jones. 



KENNEY, William Francis, M. D., Providence, 
was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., February 19, 1854, 




KENNEY. 



son of Francis W. and Margaret M. (Daley) 
Kenney. His father came to this country from 
Dubhn, Ireland, in 1834. and was engaged in the 
copper, sheet-iron and tin trade, carrying on busi- 
ness in Hartford, Conn., for forty-five years. His 
early education was obtained in the public schools 
of Hartford, after which he attended Georgetown 
University, Georgetown. D. C, and graduated from 
the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York 
City, in 1877, with honors, being first toastmaster 
of his class. He acted as substitute house surgeon 
in the Bellevue and Charity hospitals in 1876-77, 
and after graduation located (April i, 1877) in Prov- 
idence, where he has since continued in active 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



47 



practice of his profession. In 1879 he was ap- 
pointed Surgeon of the Fifth Battalion of Infantry, 
Rhode Island Militia, serving in that capacity three 
years. He was elected a member of the Common 
Council from the Third Ward ini 885-86, and was 
again elected to that body in 1895-96. He is a 
Democrat in politics. Dr. Kenney belongs both 
professionally and socially to various fraternal and 
social organizations. He has been Surgeon of 
Court Canonicus, Ancient Order of Foresters, 
1889-93 j Medical Examiner of Court Roger Wil- 
liams, A. O. O. F. of America, 1893-95 ; Supreme 
Surgeon General of Supreme Conclave K S. F. of 
the World, 1893-95 ; is Medical Examiner St. 
George Lodge, No. 14, Knights of Pythias, and of 
Endowment Rank, Section 81, Knights of Pythias; 
Past Commander Knights of the Mystic Chain ; also 
a member of the Select Castle of the last-named 
order, Westminster Lodge of Odd Fellows, and the 
Wolf Tone Literary Association. He is also a fel- 
low of the Georgetown Alumni Association, a fellow 
of the Bellevue Hospital Medical College and mem- 
ber of the Rhode Island Medical Society. Dr. 
Kenney was married, July 17, 1876, to Miss 
Elizabeth M. A. Murray; they have eight children : 
Maud A. E , Blanche M., William F., Stephen C, 
Francis J., Margaret M., David A. and Elizabeth 
Kenney. 



KENDRICK, John Edmund, of Providence, 
United States Marshal for Rhode Island, and promi- 
nent as a manufacturer, was born in Providence, 
June 17, 1854, the son of John and Lurana D. 
(Cook) Kendrick. His ancestry on both sides 
were among the earliest settlers in Massachusetts ; 
on his mother's side he is connected with the family 
of Gen Joseph Warren, who fell at Bunker Hill, and 
on his father's he is descended from Oliver Ken- 
drick, who served in the Revolutionary army. He 
received his early education in the public schools 
and in Mowry & Goff's Classical School of Provi- 
dence. He matriculated at Wesleyan University, 
Middletown, Conn., in the class of 1876. After 
graduation he was for three years in the wholesale 
drug business, and since 1877 he has been connected 
with the Kendrick Loom Harness Company and the 
American Supply Company, of which he is now the 
"Vice-President. He has taken a warm interest in 
educational affairs, and since 1887 has been a mem- 
ber of the School Committee of Providence, serving 
on many sub-committees. He has been a member 



of the Common Council since 1890, and is now, 
1896, its President, and served as a Representative 
in the General Assembly in 1891-92. He was ap- 
pointed by President Harrison United States Mar- 
shal for Rhode Island in 1892, which ofifice he now 
holds. He was one of the active organizers and for 
many years President of the Young Men's Republi- 
can Club of Providence, is President of the Mowry 
& Goff Alumni Association, Vice-President of the 
Delta Kappa Epsilon Brown University Alumni Asso- 
ciation, and is a member of the Sons of the American 
Revolution, the Masonic Order to the thirty-second 




JOHN E. KENDRICK. 

degree, and various social clubs. In politics he is a 
Republican. He married, October 24, 1877, Miss 
Phoebe Elizabeth Champlin of Westerly, R. I., who 
died in 1892. In 1894 he married Miss Helena 
Boyce of Fairfax, Vt., and they have one son, John 
Boyce Kendrick. 



LEGRIS, Marie Joseph Ernest, physician and 
surgeon, was born in Louiseville, Province of Quebec, 
Canada, May 8, 1857, the son of Antoine L. and 
Marie L. (Beland) Legris. He is of French descent. 
His grandfather Legris was born in France and 
emigrated to Canada about 1770. His son Antoine 
L. was the father of eleven children, one a priest in 



48 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Webster, Mass., one a lawyer, now deceased, one a 
member of the Federal Parliament of Canada, and 
two doctors. Dr. Legris received his early educa- 
tion in the elementary schools, and took a complete 
classical course of eight years at the Nicolet College 




M. J, E, LEGRIS. 

on the St. Lawrence, Canada. He received his 
medical training for four years at the Victoria Col- 
lege, Montreal, graduating in March 1879. He 
first located in Natick, R. I., and after sixteen 
months' residence there removed to Arctic, where 
he has since remained, enjoying a large practice in 
the town and neighborhood. He is a member of 
the Rhode Island Medical Society. He has been 
the medical examiner of the Mutual Life Insurance 
Company of New York since the death of Dr. Job 
Kenyon, which took place in 1887. He was the 
first French Canadian elected to the Town Council 
of Warwick, and held that position for four years, 
from 1889 to 1892. He endorses the principles of 
the Republican party, and has worked earnestly to 
induce his people to become naturalized. Since he 
began that work by the formation of clubs, the 
number of naturalized French Canadians has in- 
creased from about twenty five to eight hundred. 
He was charter member of the Societe St. Jean- 
Baptiste, of Centreville, and its President for the 
first three years, and since, its Treasurer ; is a mem- 
ber of Court Warwick, Foresters of America, and 



its physician since its organization in 1887, and is 
also a member of many other benevolent societies. 
He is a Roman Catholic and a member of St. Jean- 
Baptiste Church in Centreville, of which he is a 
trustee. He is a Director in the Centreville 
National Bank. On October 27, 1881, he married 
Miss L. H. Leopoldine Des Rosiers, of Montreal ; 
they have had seven children : Marie Blanche, 
Louis J. A., Charles Ernest, Marie L. Fiorina (de- 
ceased), Jean Martial, M. L. Florette and Marie 
Edith Legris. 



LANGSTAFF, Alfred M., bandmaster, was born 
in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, January 30, 1866, 
son of George and Jane (Wiskar) Langstaff. His 
ancestors on both sides for generations have been 
county squires in England, possessing considerable 
property, and being greatly respected. He came to 
the United States at an early age, and received his 
education in the public schools. Having strong 
musical tendencies he took up the study of music at 
the age of sixteen, receiving instruction from some 




ALFRED M, LANGSTAFF, 

of the best masters in this country on several instru- 
ments and in the theory of music and composition. 
He was'quick to learn and was soon admitted to an 
orchestra, and since that time he has been constantly 
advancing and perfecting himself in the theory 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



49 



and practice of music. Mr. Langstaff is the author 
of many notable compositions for church, band and 
orchestra. He at present holds the position of 
Bandmaster to the National Band of Providence, to 
which he was elected by unanimous vote on the 
death of the former leader, Thomas W. Hedly. 
This is a long established and well-known band, 
and since the advent of Mr. Langstaff has taken a 
high rank among the military bands of the country. 
He was one of the founders of the musical society 
of the Wandering Bards, has received all the hon- 
ors at the disposal of the society, and was made 
its first life member. He is a member of the Provi- 
dence Athletic Association. He married, March 
19, 1889, Miss Maud Marion Daniels; they have 
no children living. 



LATHAM, Joseph Augustus, civil engineer, was 
born in Providence, December 6, 1850, son of Joseph 
Stanton and Jane Ellen (Bulkley) Latham. His 
father was born in Windsor, Conn., and is a de- 
scendant of the William Latham whose name ap- 
pears on the tablet in Pilgrims Hall, Plymouth, as 
one of the passengers on the Mayilower. His 
mother's ancestry, the Bulkley family of Connecti- 
cut, also came to this country in the Mayflower, 
so that he is of the best Pilgrim stock on both sides. 
He received his early education in the public and 
private schools of Providence, and left Bryant & 
Stratton's Commercial College to enter the employ 
of John Howe, civil engineer of Providence, with 
whom he studied three years, and was subse- 
quently employed by him until together they bought 
a large granite ledge in Smithfield, and for two years 
he took full charge, getting out a large amount of 
granite for the city of Providence for the work about 
the Sockanosset pumping station. They also fur- 
nished the granite for the caps and foundation stone 
for the Buder Exchange, Providence. In 1873 
the ledge business was sold and he entered the em- 
ploy of S. B. Gushing & Co., civil engineers, of 
Providence, where he remained for two years, leav- 
ing to take charge of the surveying department of a 
real estate establishment in Providence. He re- 
mained about three years with this firm when he 
opened an establishment for himself in civil engi- 
neering, and has continued in the practice of his 
profession until the present time. He has made 
bridge building a specialty and erected many in the 
vicinity of Providence. He was chief engineer for 



the Pontiac Branch Railroad, until it was leased by the 
New York, New Haven & Hartford Company. He 
made a preliminary survey of the Ponegansett Rail- 
road from Providence to Danielson, Conn. He is a 
Methodist, was reared in and is a member of the 
Matthewson Street Methodist Episcopal Church, 
Providence. He has been Superintendent of the 
Sunday School for six consecutive years, has been 
a trustee of the church for several years, and is a 
member of the building committee for the erection 
of a new church edifice, which will be a model as 
well as a novel church building. He is also a mem- 




JOS, A, LATHAM, 

ber of the building committee for the erection of the 
new Edgewood Methodist Episcopal Church, now 
in process of erection. He is a member of Har- 
mony Lodge, A. F. & A. M., of Providence Chapter 
and Council, of Calvary Commandery, and is a 
" Shriner " and thirty-second degree Mason. He has 
always been an active member of the Republican 
party of Cranston, and was a member of the school 
committee for sixteen consecutive years, holding 
the office of Superintendent of Schools for three 
years. He married, November 28, 1874, Miss 
Hattie K. Tuller, of Simsbury, Conn. ; they have 
four children : Hattie L., Eva J., Charles B. and 
Arthur B. Latham. 



50 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



LANDERS, Albert Crocker, State Auditor and 
Insurance Commissioner of Rhode Island, was born 
in Newport, R. I., June 19, 1845. He was educated 
in the pubUc schools of that city. He established 
himself in the china, glass and fancy goods business 




A. C. LANDERS. 

some thirty years ago, and has been very successful. 
He served on Governor Bourne's personal staff in 
1883 to 1885. He has been a member of the State 
Central Republican Committee for twenty-odd 
years. He was elected State Auditor and Insurance 
Commissioner in May 189 1, and still holds the 
offices. He is a member of the Odd Fellows, Elks, 
Knights of Honor, Good Fellows, and an active 
member of the Lawrence Club of Newport and the 
Athletic Club of Providence. He was married, in 
1867, to Miss Sarah Perry Clarke, granddaughter of 
Hon. Joshua Perry of Newport. 



LAPHAM, Benjamin Newell, attorneyat-law, 
Providence, was born in Smithfield, R. I., April 
28, 182 r, the son of Alfred and Rebecca (Newell) 
Lapham. He is of Rhode Island stock, the pater- 
nal grandfather being William Lapham and his 
maternal Benjamin Newell. He received his early 
education in the public schools of Burrillville, then 
very poor ones, until he was sixteen years of age. 
About that time he heard Samuel Y. Atwell, an 
eloquent lawyer, argue a case, and was so much 



delighted that he determined to become a lawyer. 
He prepared for college by studying by himself and 
going on horseback to Chepachet, where he recited 
his lessons to the late Hon. George H. Brown a part 
of the time and part of the time to Alfred Bosworth, 
then a young lawyer in the office of Mr. Atwell, and 
afterwards one of the Judges of the Supreme Court 
of Rhode Island. He entered Brown University in 
1838. After three years' study his health gave out 
and he lived on his father's farm for a year. He 
then returned to college and graduated in 1843. 
He studied law in the office of Samuel Y. Atwell 
in Chepachet for a year until the death of the latter 
and then for a year in the office of Richard W. 
Greene of Providence, who was then United States 
District Attorney and afterwards Chief Justice of 
the Supreme Court of the state of Rhode Island. 
He was admitted to the Rhode Island bar in 1845, 
and commenced practice in Providence, January i, 
1846. He attended sedulously to his profession 
and acquired a large practice. He was City Solici- 
tor of Providence, 1863-65, member of the General 
Assembly 1863-64 and 1880-81, of the Providence 




B. N. LAPHAM. 

Common Council 1869-71, of the Board of Aldermen 
1876-S2 and of the State Senate 1876-77-82-83. 
He was also for many years a member of the School 
Committee. In politics he was a Democrat until 
the nomination of] .Abraham Lincoln for President 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



51 



of the United States, when he became a Republican 
and has remained one ever since. He married, June 
24, 1847, Miss Sophia M. Page ; they have had four 
children : Sophie P., now wife of John D. Lewis, 
Juha B , Eliza B. and Louis P., all deceased except 
Mrs. I,ewis. 



METCALF, Harold, physician and surgeon, 
was born in Providence, November 25, i860, son 




HAROLD METCALF. 

of Levi and Georgiana (Tucker) Metcalf. On his 
paternal side his ancestors were early settlers of 
Dedham, Mass., although for many generations they 
have belonged to Rhode Island. His great-great- 
grandfather on the maternal side was Daniel Mowry, 
who was a Member of the Continental Congress 
in 1781-82. His maternal ancestors are well- 
known families in North Smithfield and adjacent 
towns. He received his early education in the 
public schools and high schools of Providence, 
and entered Brown University, graduating in the 
class of 1884. While in college he taught evening 
schools, was clerk in a hat store, worked on a farm 
and at other employments. He adopted medicine 
as a profession and studied in the Harvard Medical 
School, from which he graduated in 1887 with the 
degree of M. D. He was Externe on the surgical 
side of the Rhode Island Hospital, and Dispensary 
Physician, during his year's residence in Providence^ 



when he removed to Wickford, R. I., and took a 
practice left vacant by the ill-health of the former 
incumbent. He was Physician to the Soldiers' 
Home while at Wickford before its removal to 
Bristol. He was appointed Medical Examiner by 
Gov. H. W. Ladd in 1889 and re- appointed in 1895 
by Gov. C. W. Lippitt. He is examiner for the 
Mutual and Equitable Life Insurance Companies. 
He is a member of the Odd Fellows fraternity and 
of the Sons of the American Revolution. In poli- 
tics he is a Republican of the independent class, 
but has always avoided public life, preferring to 
devote himself to his profession. He married, 
July 31, 1889, Miss Mary Anna Barney; they 
have four children : Mary L., George T., John T. 
and Paul B. Metcalf. 



MORROW, Robert, Manager of the Providence 
Opera House, was born in New York City, Sep- 




ROBERT morrow. 

tember 28, 1838, the sonof John and Ann E. (Moore) 
Morrow. His father was an architect by ''profes- 
sion, and his ancestors on both sides were Scotch. 
He received his early education in private schools 
and was in a boarding school until 1852. He then 
went to sea and was second mate of the schooner 
James T. Brady before he was eighteen^ years of 
age. During the course of his seafaring life he 



52 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



visited Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, 
and was for two years on the coast of Africa. He 
served in the American navy from 1856 to 1859. 
He came to Providence in the latter year and has 
remained here until the present time. He has 
been engaged successfully in various business enter- 
prises — the grocery and liquor and livery-stable 
business. In 1877 he became a member of the 
firm of Hopkins & Morrow, Managers of the 
Theatre Comique in Providence, and in 1885 
became sole Manager of the Providence Opera 
House, which he has conducted with success to 
the present time. He also manages an extensive 
brokerage business in stocks and bonds. He was 
an active fireman from 1861 to 1867, and a mem- 
ber of companies John B. Chace, No. 4, and Water 
Witch, No. 6. He is a member of the Rhode Island 
Club, the Athletic Association, and is an Odd Fellow 
and Elk. In politics he is a conservative. He mar- 
ried, April 12, 1863, Miss Mary A. Dennaly; they 
have two children : Annie L. and Ella F. Morrow. 



MASON, Robert Durfee, president of the 
Robert D Mason Company, Pawtucket, was born 




ROBT. D. MASON 



Mason, and his mother a daughter of Barney and 
Phila Benson (Tyler) Merry. He obtained his 
early education in the public schools of Pawtucket, 
and received his training for active life in the 
dyeing and bleaching establishment of his uncle 
Samuel Merry. Mr. Merry had succeeded his 
father, Barney Merry, who established the business 
in 1805. Mr. Mason succeeded his uncle in 1870, 
after being in company with him for four years, 
and has since been sole owner of the business, 
until 1889, when his son Frederic became asso- 
ciated with him as partner. In 1892 the business 
was incorporated under the name of The Robert 
D. Mason Company, with Robert D. Mason as 
President and Frederic R. Mason Treasurer. Mr. 
Mason is a Republican in politics, but has not 
sought nor accepted public office. He was, how- 
ever, an efficient member of the Pawtucket Water 
Board for fourteen years. He was married, ia 1852, 
to Miss Mary Bicknell Nicholas, who died in 1890 ; 
and in 1893 he married Miss Mary Adeline 
Havens. He has by his first wife two children : 
Frederic Robert and Ella Frances Mason. 



in Pawtucket, March 10, 1832, son of Robert 
Durfee and Mehitabel Tyler (Merry) Mason. His 
father was a son of Pardon and Annie (Hale) 



NEWELL, Timothy, physician and surgeon, was 
born March 29, 1820, in Sturbridge, Mass., the son 
of Stephen and Polly (May) Newell. His father 
was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and held 
the rank of orderly sergeant and lieutenant; he 
was a pensioner for many years. The first New 
England representative of the family, Isaac Newell, 
came to Boston from England when two years old. 
His grandson, Isaac, was the second town clerk of 
Sturbridge, in 1739. Dr. Newell's early education 
was limited to three months' attendance at the 
winter district school until si.xteen years of age. At 
this time he entered the Manual Labor High School 
at Worcester, teaching winters, alternately. He 
fitted for college at the \Mlbraham Academy and 
entered Brown University in the class of 1847. At 
the close of the sophomore year he left college and 
commenced the study of medicine in the office of 
Dr. Sylvanus Clapp of Pawtucket, and then of Dr. W. 
D. Buck of Manchester, N. H., for three years. He 
attended two full courses of lectures at Woodstock, 
Vt., and took a private 'course of three months 
there. He graduated in 1850 and subsequently 
took a course in the College of Physicians and Sur- 
geons of New York. He commenced the practice 
of medicine in Cranston, R. I., in 1851, and re- 
mained there a little over three years. Since that 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



53 



time he has been located in Providence. He is a 
member of the Providence Medical Association, and 
the Rhode Island Medical Society, of which he was 
the Treasurer two years. He was formerly a member 
of the American Medical Association, the American 




TIMOTHY NEWELL. 

Social Science Association, and American Public 
Health Association. He was largely instrumental 
in the formation of a flourishing medical library in 
Providence, and for nine years was chairman of the 
library committee, which acquired by gifts and pur- 
chase, during that period, over seven thousand 
volumes. He is a member of the Rhode Island 
Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Indus- 
try, the Rhode Island Horticultural Society, and the 
Public Park Association of Providence, of which he 
was an original member and largely instrumental in 
its promotion, Treasurer for six years, and Secretary 
and Treasurer for six years. He is a member of 
the Sons of the American Revolution, and remem- 
bers to have shaken hands with General Lafayette. 
He is an honorary member of the Metropolitan 
Public Garden Association of London. During the 
civil war he was Surgeon of the First Rhode Island 
Cavalry, commissioned November 4, 1861, and had 
charge of sick and wounded prisoners of the Seven 
Days' battle quartered in Richmond. He was re- 
leased August 20, 1862. Among his published papers 
are, " What Changes does Physiology Demand in our 



Public School System?" read before the American 
Social Science Association at Saratoga in 1876 and 
published in the "Sanitarian." As chairman of the 
committee of school hygiene of the Rhode Island 
Medical Association, in 1875, he made a full report 
with a series of resolutions, which were copied into 
several sanitary journals and commented on. He 
read a paper on '' Interior or Open Spaces in Large 
Cities," before the American Public Health Associa- 
tion. He is also the author of several pamphlets 
published annually for ten years by the Public Park 
Association, the last of which. No. 10, was influ- 
ential in securing the loan for a new State House 
and fixing its location. He is also the author of the 
" Cyclopaedia of Domestic Medicine and Hygiene," 
Bradley & Woodruff, Boston, 1890. He married, 
in September 1867, Miss Annie Potter Bates, daugh- 
ter of James W. Bates of South Kingston, and has 
one son : Claude Potter, born November 8, 1870. 



NUGENT, Charles Franklin, banker, Provi- 
dence, was born in Lynn, Mass., November 15, 1869, 




CHAS. F. NUGENT. 

son of Thomas and Eliza (Newhall) Nugent. He 
received his education in the grammar schools of 
Lynn and in the high school of Manchester, New 
Hampshire. After completing his school education 
he entered the employ of the Amoskeag Mills in 



54 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Manchester and thoroughly learned the process 
of the manufacture of cotton cloth. He was ap- 
pointed superintendent of the cotton mills in 
Moosup, Conn., in 1888, and resigned on account 
of ill-health in 1889. He came to Providence the 
same year and engaged in the merchant-tailoring 
business, which was successfully conducted under 
the firm name of C. F. Nugent & Company. In 
1893 the business of C. F, Nugent & Company was 
incorporated in a concern of which he was elected 
President. He resigned and severed his interest 
with the firm in 1894. He then engaged in the 
banking business, which he has since successfully 
conducted. He has not taken any interest in 
public life. He is a member of the West Side 
Club, the Providence Athletic Association, the 
Order of United Workmen, the Masonic fraternity 
and the Odd Fellows. In politics he is a Repub- 
lican. He married, January 12, 1894, Miss Anny E. 
Tinker, of Lafayette, Ind. ; they have no children. 



O'REILLY, Francis L., Collector of the 
Port of Providence, was born in the county of 
Cavan, province of Ulster, Ireland, June 24, 1844, 
the son of Philip and Catherine (McEntee) 
O'Reilly. The O'Reillys of Cavan were for more 
than a thousand years powerful princes and chief- 
tains in that country, who after centuries of war- 
fare against the invaders of their native land, were 
gradually reduced in their power and possessions by 
the confiscation of their lands by the kings and 
queens of England. He was educated under 
private tutorship in his father's house until he was 
seventeen years of age, at which time he came to 
the United States and settled in Rhode Island. 
After a brief residence he removed to the Southern 
States and spent a few years in the dramatic pro- 
fession and as a public speaker and lecturer. He 
then studied law and was admitted to the Rhode 
Island bar in 1870. Since that time he has been in 
the active practice of his profession in Woonsocket, 
R. I. In 1882 he was admitted to practice in the 
United States Supreme Court. His activity and 
energy have found scope not only in a large law 
practice, but in military and civil organizations, 
in political work, and in the promotion and further- 
ance of many business enterprises of a public nature 
for the advancement of his city. In 1879 he was 
commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Rhode 
Island Guards, of which regiment he has been an 
active member for several years. He has been 



active in politics and influential in the councils of 
his party, and has been for the past fifteen years a 
member of the Democratic State Committee. He 
was a Delegate to the Democratic National Con- 
ventions in 1888 and 1892, and was largely instru- 




FRANCIS L. O'REILLY. 

mental in having the vote of the state delegation 
cast in convention for President Cleveland in 1892. 
He was a Representative in the General Assembly in 
1879-80; Town Solicitor of Woonsocket in 1887-88; 
and a member of the commission created in 1890 
to build a new State House in Providence. In 1894 
he was appointed Collector of the Port of Provi- 
dence by President Cleveland, which office he now 
holds. He is married and has a family of three 
children. 



PERKINS, Jay, M. D., Providence, was born in 
Penobscot, Hancock county, Maine, October 15, 
1864, son of William N. and Phebe A. (Perkins) 
Perkins. His ancestors came from England and 
settled in York, Me., some time before the Revo- 
lution, and their descendants settled along the 
Maine coast and in Massachusetts. He attended 
the common schools until the age of seventeen, 
when he entered the Eastern State Normal School 
at Castine, and graduated as salutatorian in 1884. 
He took the college preparatory course in the Co- 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



55 



burn Classical Institute at Waterville, attended a 
special course of one year at Colby University, and 
entered Harvard Medical School, from which he 
graduated in 189 1. Following graduation he at- 
tended a post-graduate laboratory course in bac- 
teriology at Harvard. In November of the same 
year he became House Physician to the Rhode Is- 
land Hospital, was House Surgeon to the same in- 
stitution the succeeding year, then served as House 
Physician to the Boston Lying-in Hospital until 
May 1894, following which he took a post-gradu- 
ate laboratory course in pathology at Harvard. He 
came to Providence in July 1894, and was at once 
appointed Pathologist to the Rhode Island Hospi- 
tal, which position he holds at the present time. 
Dr. Perkins has especially devoted himself to re- 
search and practice in pathology and bacteriology, 
as the great advance made in medicine in modern 
times is based in these branches of medical science. 
He was one of the first physicians in Rhode Island 
to do any systematic work in this direction, and in 
association with another physician, has established 
the Rhode Island Laboratory for Bacteriology and 




JAY PERKINS. 

Pathology, in which, besides private scientific work 
in these branches for physicians from all over the 
state, is done the bacteriological work for the State 
Board of Health. Dr. Perkins is Secretary of the 
Providence Medical Association, and is a member 



of the Rhode Island and Massachusetts medical 
societies, the Rhode Island Medico-Legal Society, 
the Harvard Medical Alumni Association, the Penn- 
sylvania Society for the Prevention of Tuberculosis 
and the New England Cremation Society.- He also 
holds the position of Demonstrator of Human An- 
atomy in Brown University. He is a member of 
the Congregational Club, Union Congregational 
Church and Young Men's Christian Association of 
Providence and the Harvard Club of Rhode Island. 
He is a Republican in politics, and is unmarried. 



POND, Daniel Bullard, mayor of Woonsocket 
in 1889-92, was born in that part of Smithiield, 
R. I., subsequently forming a part of the city of 
Woonsocket, October 21, 1830, son of EH and Maria 
(Bullard) Pond. He is descended from old and 
honorable New England stock, two brothers Pond 
having come from Groton, England, with Governor 
Winthrop in 1630, and being on familiar and 
friendly terms with him. Daniel, the son of 
Robert Pond, one of the original brothers and 
from whom Daniel B. is descended, settled in 
Dedham, Mass., where he was a lieutenant of 
militia and a substantial citizen. The family were 
active and patriotic during the war of the Revolu- 
tion, taking arms immediately after the battle of 
Lexington and serving until the freedom of the 
Colonists was established. Eli Pond, Daniel B.'s 
great-grandfather, was a drummer in a company of 
minute men, a sergeant in Capt. Josiah Fuller's 
Company, a lieutenant in Capt. Amos Ellis's 
Company, and lieutenant in a company serving in 
Rhode Island in 1788. Eli Pond, the father of 
Daniel B., settled in Woonsocket in 1827, where he 
established himself as a painter. He subsequently 
conducted a general store for paints, oils, and man- 
ufacturers' supplies, and also engaged successfully in 
cotton manufacture. He was also engaged for 
some time in farming in Mendon, Mass. Daniel 
received his early education in the public schools of 
Woonsocket and Mendon. He attended the 
school of Prof. James Bushee at the " Old Bank 
Village " and subsequently the Manual Labor 
School at Worcester, Mass. He afterward entered 
Phillips Academy at Andover, Mass., to fit for 
college, where he remained two years, and then 
finished his preparatory course at a private school 
in Concord, Mass., where he made the acquaintance 
of Emerson, Hawthorne and Thoreau. He entered 
Brown University and graduated in 1857 with the 



56 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



degree of A. B. He adopted the law as a profes- 
sion and studied in the Law School at Albany, 
N. Y., from which he graduated with the degree of 
LL. B., and was admitted to the bar of New York in 
1858. At this time he was engaged as attorney for 
the township of Ceredo, Va., where he remained 
for a short time, and then engaged in practice in 
partnership with P. P. Todd, in Blackstone, Mass. 
In 1859 he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar. 
The following year he had charge of the law and 
collection office of the firm in Boston, and in i860 
had charge of the office in New York, which repre- 
sented collection claims against Southerners for over 
a million dollars. The war destroyed the business 
and in 1862 he returned to Woonsocket and began 
the manufacture of cotton warp in what was known 
as the Harris No. i Mill, afterward building a mill 
of his own where he remained in the business for 
several years. He was the first cotton and woolen 
manufacturer in the state to shorten the hours of 
labor. He was successful in business from the 
beginning and acquired a large property, but the 




DANIEL B. POND. 

failure of debtors in 1878 caused him to sus- 
pend and abandon all his means to creditors. 
He then resumed his profession, which he has 
successfully followed since. He has taken a very 
active part in politics and in public affairs, and 



has been honored by many important offices in 
the city and state. He was for many years a 
member of the Town Council of Woonsocket, a 
Representative in the General Assembly in 1864-66, 
and Senator in 1867-68-69, resigning in 1870. 
While in the House he formulated the enactments 
for the division of Woonsocket from Cumberland, 
and was the first Senator from the new town. He 
was Town Solicitor in 1879-80, Chairman of the 
Consolidated School District Trustees and of the 
Board of Engineers of the Fire Corporation. He 
took an active part in the organization of the fire 
departments and served on the committee for the 
erection of the town asylum. He delivered an ad- 
dress at the Garfield memorial service in Woonsocket 
in 188 1, and was a member of the committee to 
locate the soldiers' monument. He was the candi- 
date of the Democratic party for the General Treas- 
urer in 1880. He was elected first Councilman and 
President of the Board in 18S7, but resigned to ac- 
cept the office of High Sheriff of Providence county, 
to which he had been elected by the General 
Assembly in that year. He was a member of the 
Board of Assessors of taxes in 1886, and Chairman 
in 1887-88. He drew up the original charter for 
the city of Woonsocket and secured its introduction 
in the General Assembly in 1888 ; it was subsequently 
passed with slight changes. He was elected the first 
Senator from the new city, and re-elected in 1890 
and 189 r. He was elected Mayor in 1889, and re- 
elected for three successive terms. He has also 
been a member of the Stone Bridge Commission, 
and a member of the Rhode Island Board of World's 
Fair Commissioners. He was appointed in 1891 a 
member of the Board of Trustees for the Rhode 
Island Institute for the Deaf and re-appointed in 
1893 for the term of six years. On the organization 
of the Board he was elected its President and still 
holds the office. He is also Chairman of the Build- 
ing Committee. He introduced the original petition 
for the division of Providence county, and kept the 
matter before the General Assembly while he was a 
member. He drew up and procured the amend- 
ment to the revised statutes providing for holding 
the highest courts at Woonsocket. He advocated 
the establishment of the Soldiers' Home and made 
the first motion for an appropriation for that pur- 
pose. As Mayor of Woonsocket he advocated most 
of the present public improvements in highways, 
bridges, water-works, a system of drainage, a system 
of public parks, the extension of the electric rail- 
way and the building of the railroad to Pascoag, the 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



57 



city encouraging this project by guaranteeing the 
interest on $100,000 of the construction bonds. 
He was an earnest advocate for exempting new 
industries from taxation, and the new impetus given 
for the growth of the city may be traced to this 
action. In pohtics he was a Repubhcan from the 
organization of the party until 1872, when he became 
a Democrat. He has been Chairman of the Demo- 
cratic State Central Committee and of the Demo- 
cratic Town Committee until he decHned further 
services. He is a member of the Alumni Association 
of Phillips Academy, of the Theta Delta Chi of 
Brown University, the Woonsocket Business Men's 
Association, the Woonsocket Agricultural Society, 
of which he has been Trustee and President, and for 
which he drew up and obtained the charter in the 
General Assembly. He is one of the charter mem- 
bers of the Rhode Island Society of the Sons of the 
American Revolution. He married, November 29, 
i860. Miss Isadore Verry, only daughter of James 
Verry, a successful woolen manufacturer of Woon- 
socket, and of Dedham, Mass. : they have had five 
children : Verry Nolan and Clarence Eli, who died in 
infancy ; and Isadore Maud, Nannie May and Grace 
Verena Pond. 



Co-operative Association for Savings and Building 
since the first year of its existence, was a charter 
member of the Newport Street Railway Company, 



PITMAN, Theophilus Topham, proprietor of the 
Newport Daily News, was born in New Bedford, 
Mass., April 12, 1842, son of William R. and Ann 
Agnes (Topham) Pitman. His ancestry on both 
sides dates from the earliest settlement of New- 
port; he is of the seventh generation from John 
Pitman, who settled in the town in 17 10. His 
father was active in the formatioii of the Repub- 
lican party. His mother was the daughter of Hon. 
Theophilus Topham, for thirty years a member 
of^ the Town Council of Newport, its President 
for many years, and an influential citizen in the 
affairs of the town. Mr. Pitman received his edu- 
cation in the public and private schools of New 
Bedford and Newport. He came to Newport in 
1856, and in 1862 engaged in the coal and grain 
business in partnership with the late John O. Peck- 
ham. In June 1867 he purchased the half interest 
in the Newport Daily News of Rev. M. J. Talbot, 
forming a co-partnership with Hon. L. D. Davis. 
In August 1887 he bought the interest of Mr. Davis 
in the News and has since conducted the publication 
of the newspaper alone. He has never held public 
office, with the exception of that of Park Commis- 
sioner. He has been a Director of the Newport 




T. T. PITMAN. 

and has always been a member of its board of man- 
agement. He married, November 1866, Miss Marie 
J. Davis, widely known in literature as "Margery 
Deane" ; Mrs. Pitman died in Paris, November 30, 
1888. 



PEIRCE, William Copeland, President and 
Treasurer of the Providence Machine Company, 
was born in New Bedford, Mass., November 2r, 
1863, son of Charles M. and Amanda E. (Hill) 
Peirce. He is a grandson of the late well-known 
Thomas J. Hill. He received his early education 
in the public schools of New Bedford, and at War- 
ner's Business College in Providence. In 1881 he 
was apprenticed to the Brown & Sharpe Manufac- 
turing Company for three years. In 1884 he en- 
tered the employ of the Providence Machine 
Company as a journeyman's machinist, and in 1885 
was admitted to the firm, and became Superinten- 
dent of Construction. In 1891 he was elected 
Agent for the firm, and in 1894 became its Presi- 
dent and Treasurer. He is President of the 
Elizabeth Mills, and a Director in the Equitable 
Fire and Marine Insurance Company and the City 
Savings Bank. He is an active member of the 



58 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Providence Board of Trade and the New England 
Cotton Manufacturers' Association. In politics he 
has always been a Republican^ but has not sought 




W. C. PEIRCE. 



or accepted public office. He married, in Septem- 
ber 1887, Miss Isabella Louise Baker, of Provi- 
dence ; they have four children : Thomas J., 
Emma I., Wm. C, Jr., and Ruth C. Peirce. 



PHILLIPS, Eugene Francis, President of the 
American Electrical Works, Providence, was born 
in that city, November 10, 1843, son of the late 
David and Maria Nancy (Rhodes) PhilHps of North 
Scituate, R. I., and a descendant of Christopher 
Phillips of Rainham, St. Martins, county of Norfolk, 
England, who landed at Salem, Mass., June 12, 1630, 
and settled in Watertown in that state. He re- 
ceived his education in the public schools of Prov- 
idence, making a break in his course at the high 
school, to enhst and serve in the Tenth Rhode 
Island Volunteers in 1862, together with a large 
delegation of high school and college students, re- 
turning to complete his studies at the time the 
regiment was sworn out of service. His occupation 
up to the time of the commencement of the manu- 
facture of insulated wire in 1870, which may prop- 
erly be called the business of his life, was of a 
varied nature, and such as usually falls to the lot of 



most young men. In the year 1870 Mr. Phillips in 
a very limited way commenced the manufacture of 
insulated telegraph wire, in a barn in the rear of his 
residence, 57 Chestnut street, and each succeeding 
year added to the amount of the production of the 
preceding year. In 1882 the business was incor- 
porated under the name of the American Electrical 
Works, from which time he has filled the position of 
its President. The business has grown until the 
company at present occupies the position of one of 
the leading manufactories of its kind in the world, 
and is doing an amount of business excelled by 
few individuals or corporations in the state. In 
politics Mr. Phillips is an out-and-out Republican. 
He is a member of the American Institute of Elec- 
trical Engineers of New York, What Cheer Lodge 
F. & A. M., Swarts Lodge I. O. O. F., Providence 
Board of Trade, Slocum Post G. A. R., and of the 
Athletic, Popham, Union and Rhode Island Yacht 
clubs of Providence. He married, October 30, 
1867, Josephine Johanna Nichols, daughter of 
Samuel and Nancy (Baker) Nichols of Rehoboth, 




E, F. PHILLIPS. 

Mass. ; of this union were born : Eugene Rowland, 
now a superintendent in the American Electrical 
Works, Edith Josephine, Frank Nichols, now a 
student in the Massachusetts Institute of Technol- 
ogy, Boston, and Grace, who died in March 1883. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



59 



PEIRCE, Arthur Clarence, physician and sur- 
geon, was born November 15, 1858, at Dighton, 
Mass., the son of Isaac and EHzabeth A. (Adams) 
Peirce. He comes of old New England stock. His 
ancestor, Capt. Michael Peirce, born in England 




A. C. PEIRCE. 

about 1615, came to America in 1645, and located 
at Hingham, Mass. He was commissioned a captain 
of troops by the colonial authorities in 1669, and 
was killed in battle with the Narragansett Indians 
under Chief Canonchet, at Attleboro Gore, March 
26, 1676. The Hne of descent is : Ephraim Peirce, 
died 1719; Ephraim Peirce, born 1674; David 
Peirce, 1701-1767; David Peirce, 1726-1801 ; David 
Peirce, 1768-1847; Isaac Peirce, 1814; Arthur C, 
1858. He received his early education in the pubhc 
schools of Dighton. He adopted medicine as a profes- 
sion, and took one course at Rush Medical College, 
Chicago, one course at the College of Physicians 
and Surgeons, Chicago, one course at the Kentucky 
School of Medicine, Louisville, Ky., from which he 
received the degree of M. D., June 26, 1883. He 
practised medicine in Dighton, Mass., from 1883 to 

1886, and settled in Drownville, R. I., December 

1887, where he remained until December 1895, at 
which time he removed to Riverside, where he is 
now engaged in the practice of his profession. He 
was appointed Health Officer of the town of Bar- 



rington by the town council in April 1894, and has 
held the office since that date. He was elected a 
member of the school committee of Barrington, for 
three years, April 1890, and served until August 
189 1, when he resigned. He is a Knight of Pythias. 
He was elected presiding officer of Barrington Coun- 
cil No. 30 O. U. A. M., for the first two terms after 
the institution of the Council, and by virtue of that 
office became a member of the State Council of 
Rhode Island O. U. A. M., April 23, 1895. He 
was camping and hunting in the state of Texas from 
November 1886 to July 1887, and wrote a book 
giving an account of his experience in that state, 
which was published by the Forest and Stream Pub- 
lishing Company of New York, under the title of 
"A Man from Corpus Christi," in May 1894. He 
married, April 8, 1889, Miss Idella Lincoln, of 
Taunton, Mass. ; they have no children. 



PEIRCE, James Lewis, President of the Provi- 
dence Board of Trade, and merchant, was born in 




J. L. PEIRCE. 

East Greenwich, R. I., March 25, 1830, the son of 
James B. and Mary (Pinniger) Peirce. David Pin- 
niger, his grandfather, was of French descent and 
learned his trade of blacksmith in the " Old Forge 
Mill " near East Greenwich with Gen. Nathaniel 



6o 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Greene. The father of his grandmother was Capt. 
Thomas Arnold, who lost a leg at the battle of Mon- 
mouth, and whose tombstone at East Greenwich 
records the battles in which he was engaged. His 
paternal grandfather, Daniel Peirce, was also a soldier 
in the Revolutionary war, and took part in the battle 
of Red Bank. He received his early education in the 
public schools and at the East Greenwich Seminary. 
He commenced his business life as a clerk for V. J. 
Rates & Co., cotton manufacturers, whom he served 
from 1847 to 1848, and a clerk for David Sisson & 
Co., in the oil business, from 1848 to 1856. In 
1856 he became a partner in the firm of French, 
Sisson & Co., which in 1858 became the firm of 
French & Peirce In 1862 he established the firm 
of J. L. Peirce & Co., which has conducted a large 
and successful business up to the present time. He 
served in the Common Council of the city of Provi- 
dence from 1876 to 1880. In 1861-62 he was on 
the staff of Brig.- Gen. T. J. Stead, Quartermaster of 
Rhode Island Militia, in charge of the outfit of the 
state troops in the service. He has been Treasurer 
of Grace Episcopal Church, Providence, since 1859. 
He was elected President of the Providence Board 
of Trade in 1893-94-95. He married Miss Lucretia 
Foster, June 22, 1853, and they have one child, a 
daughter, living. 



Burrillville, R. I. On October 10, 1861, he was 
commissioned Assistant Surgeon of the Fifth Rhode 
Island Volunteers and went with the Burnside ex- 
pedition to North Carolina. After the regiment 
was filled up he was commissioned Surgeon, and re- 



POTTER, Albert, physician and surgeon, was 
born in Sturbridge, Mass., February 28, 1831, son of 
Waterman and Tryphena (Stedman) Potter. His 
ancestors are of historical New England stock and 
connected with leading families in Rhode Island. 
Robert Potter came from Coventry, Eng., to Salem 
in March 1628, and to Rhode Island in 1638. 
Through the Watermans he is descended from Roger 
Wilhams, Thomas Olney, John Whipple, Capt. 
Arthur Fenner, who was ensign in a troop of horse 
in Cromwell's army, John Smith the miller, Richard 
Borden, and others. Through the Windsors, he is 
descended from Roger WiUiams, Robert Pember- 
ton, Stephen Harding and others. He is also a 
descendant from Roger Burlingame, Edward Fisher, 
and the Howards. He received his early education 
in the public schools of Sturbridge and in Monson 
Academy. He was a student in the University of 
Michigan and graduated from the Medical School 
of Harvard University in 1855, with the degree of 
M. D. He practised medicine in Scituate, R. I., in 
1855, and in 1856 removed to Charlton, Mass., 
where he practised until i860, when he removed to 




ALBERT POTTER. 

mained with the regiment until mustered out at the 
expiration of the term of service, December 22, 1864. 
In addition to other duties he had charge of Belger's 
Battery, and was examining surgeon for recruits in 
North Carolina in 1864. In 1863 he had charge of 
the Foster General Hospital for some time. After 
his return from the war he settled in Chepachet, R. I., 
where he has since remained. He was President 
of the Town Council of Gloucester 1888-89, chair- 
man of the school committee, and assessor of taxes. 
He is a fellow of the Rhode Island Medical Society, 
and was its President in 1888-89. ^^ i^ ^ ^^^^ 
Master of Friendship Lodge A. F. & A. M., 
Surgeon and Adjutant of Charles E. Guild Post G. 
A. R. ; he is a member of the Fifth Rhode Island 
and Battery F Association, and an ex-President of 
the organization. He is a member of the Rhode 
Island Historical Society. He assisted in writing 
the history of the Fifth Regiment Rhode Island 
Volunteers, and has published some genealogical 
tables and histories and contributed papers to the 
proceedings of various societies. He has taken no 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



6i 



part in politics or public life, except in town affairs. 
He married, June lo, 1855, Miss Urania Tourtellot 
Harris of Scituate, R. I. ; they have two children : 
Charles and Frank H. Potter. 



POTTER, Dexter Burton, attorney- at-law, was 
born in Scituate, R. I., August 23, 1840, son of 
Jeremiah and Mary Ann (Salisbury) Potter. He is 
descended in the eighth generation from Robert 
Potter, who came from Coventry, England, in 1634 ; 
he settled in what is now Portsmouth, R. I., in 
1637 or 1638, and in January 1642, he and others 
bought of Sachem Myantonomoy the Shawmut Pur- 
chase, so-called, which they afterward named War- 
wick, and which embraced what is now a large por- 
tion of the county of Kent. His great-grandfather, 
Captain John Potter, served with distinction in the 
Revolutionary war. His maternal ancestry also 
came from England. He received his early educa- 
tion in the public schools, in the Riverpoint Classi- 
cal Seminary, and East Greenwich Academy. After 
graduation he read law for three years in the offices 




DEXTEH B. POTTER. 

of Ira O. Seamans in Warwick and of B. N. & S. S. 
Lapham~in Providence, and was admitted to the 
Rhode Island bar December 4, 1 868, and to the bar of 
the United States Circuit Court November 15, 1871. 
Since his admission to the bar he has successfully 



practiced his profession in Providence, having acted 
as counsel in a large number of important cases, and 
has a constantly increasing office practice. He has 
taken an active part in politics and public life. He 
was elected a Representative in the General Assem- 
bly from Coventry in 1871 and 1872, and a Senator 
in 1873 and 1874. He declined a re-election in 
1875, but was again elected a Representative in 
1876-77-78. He was chosen Speaker of the House 
in 1877 and 1878, and elected to the Senate again 
in 1879. While Speaker for two years, which in- 
cluded six sessions, two special, he never once left 
the chair to engage in debates, was never absent a 
day's session, and never had a ruling questioned or 
appealed from by any member of the House. He 
was Moderator for two years in Scituate and five in 
Coventry. He was also a trial justice in Scituate, 
and for two years a member of the school commit- 
tee. In politics he is a Republican. He is a mem- 
ber of the Rhode Island Society of the Sons of the 
American Revolution and one of its board of mana- 
gers. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, 
has been Worshipful Master of Manchester Lodge, 
No. 12, Marshal in the Grand Lodge, and District 
Deputy Grand Master. He is a member of the 
Providence Bar Club, and one of its executive com- 
mittee. He is also a member of the Providence 
Athletic Association. He married, July 24, 1883, 
Miss Emily H. Allen ; he has no children. 



RICH, William Greenman, attorney-at-law, was 
born in Medway, Mass., October 21, 1864, son of 
John Crane and Amelia (Greenman) Rich. His 
ancestors on both sides were English Puritans. He 
is descended from Thomas Rich, who came from 
the west of England in 1634, and settled at Truro, 
Cape Cod, Mass. A family bible brought over the 
water by this ancestor was printed in London in 
1579, and has remained the property of the Rich 
family continuously ever since, and is now in a good 
state of preservation. His great-grandfather, Barn- 
abas Rich, was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, 
and the sword with which he fought at the Battle 
of Bunker Hill is now in the possession of the 
subject of this sketch. His grandfather, Ezekiel 
Rich, was a graduate of Brown University and of 
Andover Theological Seminary, a Congregational 
minister and educator. His father, John Crane 
Rich, was a school teacher. He received his early 
education at the public schools, and took a course 
at the high school in Blackstone, Mass., and also 



62 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



for one year in a private academy in Providence. 
He earned his own living and paid for his education 
without help since he was fourteen years of age. 
He adopted the law as a profession, and finished his 
preparatory studies in the office of Edwin Aldrich, 




WM. G. RICH. 

Esq., of Woonsocket. He then took a course at the 
Boston University and was admitted to the Rhode 
Island bar in February 1892. In February 1893 he 
purchased the entire law library of the late Judge 
Charles F. Ballou, which with his own addition now 
constitutes one of the best working law libraries in 
the state. He has devoted himself strictly to his 
profession, and now has a large practice, being 
counsel for several corporations and banks. He 
has taken no part in public life, believing it impossible 
to be a lawyer and a politician at the same time. 
He votes the Republican ticket straight, but takes 
no share in party management. He is a member 
of the Providence Press Club, and the Woonsocket 
Young Business Men's Club, which he helped to 
organize. He is not married. 



to Plymouth, Mass., about 1660. His great-grand- 
father, Oliver, settled at Mendon, Mass., about 
1740. His grandfather, Ahab, was a Baptist clergy- 
man, and was settled at various places in Rhode 
Island and Massachusetts. His father was engaged 
in the tin business in Blackstone, Mass., until 1849, 
when he went to California, where he died in 185 1. 
He received his early education in the public 
schools of Blackstone until eleven years of age. 
Soon after, with a younger sister, Minnie, he moved 
to Chepachet, R. I., where the opportunities for 
education were limited, and he had to depend 
mainly upon self-instruction. He was in the em- 
ploy of Otis Sayles & Son, manufacturers of cotton 
goods, until August 17, 1861, when he enlisted as 
private in Company D, Fourth R. I. Infantry, and 
was promoted to Second Lieutenant October 2, 
1 86 1, and presented with a sword by the citizens of 
Glocester. He was promoted to First Lieutenant 
November 20, 1861, and to Captain August 2, 1862. 
He took part with his regiment in the operations 
under General Burnside in North Carolina, in the 




WALTER A. READ. 



READ, Walter Allen, dealer in general mer- 
chandise, was born July 6, 1842, in Blackstone, 
Mass., the son of Thomas Jenks and Sarah (Burton) 
Read. His ancestors were English and emigrated 



operations under General McClellan before Rich- 
mond, in General Pope's campaign, at Antietam, at 
Fredericksburg, and joined General Peck at Suffolk, 
when besieged by General Longstreet. He served 
under General Butler at Fortress Monroe until 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



63 



June 1864, and then joined the forces under 
General Grant operating against Richmond. He 
was in the battle of the Mine, when the regiment 
lost nearly half of its numbers. He was the senior 
Captain and commander of the regiment after the 
battle of the Mine until it was disbanded in Provi- 
dence, October 15, 1864. After the war he associated 
himself with Augustus F. Wade in the sale of general 
merchandise from 1865 to 18 71, and has continued 
the business by himself since. He was Postmaster 
in Chepachet from June 1866 to 1885. He was 
appointed a commissioner of the State Board of 
Soldiers' ReHef in 1885 and served until 1890, and 
was agent of the board until 1895. He was ap- 
pointed a member of the State Board of Charities 
and Correction in 1893 for the term of six years. 
He was Worshipful Master of Friendship Lodge, 
No. 7, A F. & A. M., in 1888-89. No RepubUcan 
organization existed in Glocester previous to 1881. 
He was Chairman of the Town Committee formed 
that year, and succeeded in polling thirty-six 
Republican votes out of a voting list of nearly six 
hundred and fifty. There was a decided gain from 
that time on, and in 1888 he was elected a Senator 
from Glocester by one majority, the first Senator 
ever elected in that town on a straight party issue. 
With the exception of the year 1892 he has held 
the position since. He served on the Finance 
Committee of the Senate in 1888 and 1889, and on 
the Judiciary Committee since. He has been 
Commander of Charles E. Guild Post, G. A. R., 
since its organization in 1891. He married, Septem- 
ber 19, 1866, Miss Charlotte Owen, daughter of 
Capt. George L. Owen, of Glocester ; they have one 
daughter : Maude Louise, born March 9, 1874. 



family he became an inmate of his house and sub- 
stantially apprenticed to him. Under Mr. Canham's 
instruction his ability developed so rapidly that 
before he was nineteen he became the leader of the 
Owego Band. Soon after he was engaged in the 
famous Dodworth's Band of New York, in which 
he played the cornet. He visited Europe and 
played as a cornet soloist in concerts in England, 
Ireland and Germany, with great success. Return- 
ing from Europe he enHsted a band for Baxter's 
Zouaves, but it was mustered out by order of the 
Government dismissing all military bands. He 
again joined Dodworth's Band, and was the first to 




D, W, REEVES. 



REEVES, David Wallis, musical composer 
and band-leader. Providence, was born in 
Owego, N. Y., son of Deacon Lorenzo and Maria 
(Clark) Reeves. His ancestry is thoroughly 
American. He received his early education in the 
public schools. He had a remarkable taste for 
music and acquired a knowledge of vocalization as 
a child, singing alto in a church choir. While a lad 
of fifteen he met Mr. Thomas Canham, a noted 
instructor of military bands, and by his advice he 
became second alto in the Owego band. Mr. 
Canham appreciated the remarkable musical genius 
of young Reeves and by the consent of the latter's 



play I-evy's " Whirlwind Polka " before Levy came 
to this country. He had learned the art of " triple- 
tongueing" in London, and was the first to intro- 
duce it in this country, becoming the first cornet 
soloist of Dodworth's Band. In 1866, he was in- 
duced to accept the leadership of the American 
Band of Providence, on the retirement of Joseph 
C. Greene, who had occupied that position for 
nearly forty years. He greatly improved, enlarged 
and strengthened the organization and imbued it 
with his own spirit and taste, until it came to be 
acknowledged as one of the finest bands in the 
country. From the date of his leadership it has 
been universally known as Reeves'American Band. 



64 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Besides his success as a leader, and as a cornet 
soloist, in which he has ranked with Arbuckle and 
Levy, he has devoted much time to musical com- 
position. He has composed nearly a hundred mili- 
tary marches, many of which have been very 
popular in this country and in Europe. Of his 
abilities as a military composer the American Mu- 
sician said : " He is undoubtedly the foremost 
march writer of America, if not of the world." 
Reeves' marches are popular everywhere, not so 
much for their melodic pretensions as for their 
intense military spirit, rhythmic swing, fine contra- 
puntal treatment, and excellent instrumentation. 
His writings in their line are marvels of musicianly 
work, and have won the admiration of American 
march composers, whose great aim is to imitate 
them in style and treatment. March writing is 
about the only branch of the art in which the 
United States excels. It does this mainly through 
the efforts of Mr. Reeves, whose style, full of vitality 
and martial spirit, marked a departure from 
European methods that other composers have not 
been slow to follow. The military march is a dis- 
tinct form in art, and America may honestly, in 
the person of one of her talented sons, lay claim to 
having brought it to perfection, if not creating it. 
He has also written the score of two operas, one of 
which, "The Ambassador's Daughter," was pro- 
duced at the Park Garden, Providence, following 
the water '■ Pinafore " given as a full-rigged ship, 
the idea originating with Mr. Reeves. After the 
death of P. S. Gilmore he received a unanimous 
call to become the leader of Gilmore's famous 
band, then numbering one hundred members, and 
accepted it. He conducted it successfully in 
several tours and important engagements, notably at 
the Chicago World's Fair, and the Minneapolis and 
Pittsburg expositions. At the urgent request of 
his fellow-citizens and members of the American 
Band he decided to resume his old position and 
his residence in Providence. His first appearance 
at a complimentary concert was the occasion of 
a very flattering popular demonstration. Governor 
Brown and staff appeared upon the stage and con- 
gratulatory addresses were given by the Governor 
and Adjutant-General Dyer. Since that time he 
has been actively engaged in his old position and 
laboring in the familiar branches of his profession 
as composer and leader. He married, September 
30, 1871, Mrs. Sarah E. Blanding ; they have 
two children, a son and daughter. The son, D. W. 
Reeves, Jr., is a student at Brown University. 



ROBINSON, Rowland Rodman, physician and 
surgeon, was born in Wakefield, R. I., August 23, 1862, 
son of Benjamin Franklin and Caroline Elizabeth 
(Rodman) Robinson. He is descended from well- 
known and distinguished Rhode Island ancestry, 
which includes five colonial governors — William 
Coddington, Nicholas Easton, Benedict Arnold, 
Peleg Sandford and John Coggeshall ; and from 
three deputy-governors — John Greene, George 
Hazard and William Robinson. He is connected 
with the old and honored South County families of 
the Browns, Peckhams, Gardiners, Hazards, Car- 




R. R. ROBINSON. 

penters, Rodmans and others, and among his direct 
ancestors were Deputy-Governor William Robinson 
and Hon. Samuel Rodman. He received his early 
education in the public schools until the age of 
fifteen, and attended Captain Bucklyn's school at 
Mystic, Conn., for three years, and Gen. Russell's 
military school in New Haven for one year. He 
was a special student at Harvard College from 1881 
to 1885, and attended the Harvard Medical School 
from 1885 to 1888, graduating with the degree of 
M. D. He was a student for two years, from 1888 
to 1890, at the General Hospital in Vienna, Austria, 
attending clinics and studying medicine in all its 
branches, and for three months at the Rotunda Hos- 
pital, Dublin, where he paid special attention to 
midwifery. On his return to this country he estab- 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



65 



lished himself in the practice of medicine in his 
native town in 1890, where he has since remained. 
He has been Town Physician of South Kingston for 
three years. He was commissioned Captain of Com- 
pany F, First Regiment of Infantry, Rhode Island 
MiHtia, May 3, 1895. He has been a Trustee of the 
Rhode Island Institute for the Deaf since November 
19, 1891. He is a member of the Rhode Island State 
Medical Society, of the Washington County Medical 
Society, of the Harvard Medical School Graduate 
Society, and of the Society of the Sons of the 
American Revolution. In politics he is a Repub- 
lican. He is not married. 



the manufacture of confectionery, and continuing to 
the present time. He has established a business in 
this line of large proportions, now carried on under 
the name and style of The J. H. Roberts Company, 
incorporated 1895. Mr. Roberts is not a club or 
society man, his time outside of his family being 
mainly devoted to the interests of his large and con- 
stantly expanding business. He is a Democrat, but 
has never held political office. He was married, 
June 4, 1874, to Miss Harriet Littlefield, and this 
union has been blessed by seven children : Martha 
J., Joseph H , John H., Jr., Harriet, Alice D., 
Linda B. and Dorothy Roberts. 



ROBERTS, John Hopkinson, manufacturing con- 
fectioner, Providence, was born in Somersworth, New 
Hampshire, April 5, 1840, son of James H. and Lydia 
(Hopkinson) Roberts. His ancestry is English. 
He was educated in the public schools, and after 
graduation pursued various avocations until the 
breaking out of the Rebellion, when he became of 
age, and enlisted, serving throughout the war. On 
his return from the army in 1866 he engaged in the 



SMITH, Frank Bailey, physician and surgeon, 
Washington, was born in Columbus, Ga , January 




JOHN H. ROBERTS. 



manufacturing confectionery business in Boston. 
In [i873j;he [sold out in_ Boston [and removed to 
Providence, entering there into the'same business, 




F. B. SMITH. 

3, 1848, son of Benonie and Mary Anna (Bailey) 
Smith. His grandparents were of English and Scotch 
ancestry of worthy lineage. Feeble health in early 
life prevented his attending school. Later how- 
ever he attended private schools, and still later, 
public schools, after which he took an academic 
course under the private instruction of Professor 
Hall. He studied medicine for three years with Dr. 
Wm. A. Lewis of Moosup, Conn., and one year 
with Dr. F. S. Abbott, a prominent surgeon of Nor- 



66 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



wich, Conn. He then took a medical course at the 
University of Vermont, after which he graduated 
from the University of New York City in 1873. He 
is of the Baptist faith and a member of that church. 
He is an active temperance worker, and was an 
ardent advocate for constitutional prohibition in 
Rhode Island. He was formerly a Republican, but 
when the Republican Legislature and Republican 
party advocated and voted for the repeal of con- 
stitutional prohibition, he left their ranks and has 
been an earnest worker in the Prohibition party 
ever since, and is now a member of the Prohibition 
State Central Committee. He is a member of the 
Masonic fraternity and an active member of the 
Order of United American Mechanics. He is a 
strong woman suffragist, and a member of the state 
association championing the cause. He is also a 
member of the Women's Suffrage League of his own 
town. He is a member of the Rhode Island So- 
ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and 
one of the executive board. He is in fact a moral 
reformer in general. He is a member of the Rhode 
Island Medical Society and the American Medical 
Association. He began the practice of medicine 
in Greene, R. I. Six years later he married Miss 
Evangeline H., daughter of Dr. Allen Tillinghast, 
of Washington, R. I. After the death of the latter 
he succeeded him in practice at Washington, where 
he is still residing and doing a large and successful 
business. He has no children. 



of Phenix, R. I., also of the Warwick Club, the 
Providence Press Club and the Providence Athletic 
Association. In politics he is a Republican. Dr. 



SPRAGUE, Albert Gallatin, M. D., President 
of the State Board of Health, was born in Provi- 
dence, November 22, 1836, son of Albert G. and 
Mary (Fiske) Sprague. His grandmother on the 
paternal side, Amy (Williams) Sprague, was de- 
scended in direct line from Roger Williams. He 
received his early education at Peirce Academy, 
Middleboro, Mass., and entered Jefferson Medical 
College at Philadelphia, graduating in 1859. ^^ 
started the practice of medicine in Warwick, R. I., 
in 1866, and has since practised there to the present 
time. Dr. Sprague is President of the State Board 
of Health, of which he has been a member since 
its organization in 1878. He was a Representative 
to the General Assembly in 1886-87, and has been 
Health Officer of the town of Warwick since 1887. 
In the army he served as Assistant Surgeon in the 
Tenth and Seventh regiments Rhode Island Volun- 
teers, from May 1862 to the close of the war in 
1865. He is a member of McGregor Post G. A. R. 




ALBERT G. SPRAGUE. 



Sprague was married, November 22, 1859, to Miss 
Ellen T. Duncan of North Brookfield, Mass. ; they 
had two children : Albert D. and Mary E. D. 
Sprague, both deceased. 



SMITH, Charles Sherman, M. D., Providence, 
was born in Douglas, Mass., October 16, 1863, son 
of Dr. John Derby and Susan (Anthony) Smith. He 
comes of good medical ancestry. His grandfather. 
Dr. Nathan Smith, founded the Medical School of 
Dartmouth College, filled for nearly twenty years 
the chair of surgery in the Medical School of Yale 
College, and gave large aid as a lecturer in estab- 
lishing similar schools at Bowdoia College and at 
the University of Vermont. Nathan Smith was a 
farmer's son, and at sixteen shouldered a musket to 
protect Vermont homesteads from Indian attack 
during the Revolutionary war. At the close of that 
period he found a fitting mate in Sarah, daughter 
of General Jonathan Chase who fought with Stark 
at Bennington and drew up the terms of surren- 
der for Burgoyne after the battle of Saratoga, and 
granddaughter of Samuel Chase who joined the 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



67 



Continental army when near seventy years of age. 
Dr. Nathan Smith's practice extended throughout 
New England and Canada. He was the second 
American surgeon to perform ovariotomy, and his 
method was the one that is best approved at the 
present time. He had four sons, all of whom fol- 
lowed the profession of their father. Dr. David S. 
C. H. Smith was formerly a practising physician in 
Providence, and was an accomplished botanist and 
entomologist. Dr. Nathan R. Smith, of Baltimore, 
Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in the University 
of Vermont at the youthful age of twenty-eight, was 
soon called to the chair of anatomy in Jefferson 
College, and later to the chair of surgery in the 
University of Maryland, where he remained until 
the ripe age of eighty. He counted among his 
early pupils, Drs. Gross and Atley. In lithotomy 
alone he performed successfully three hundred 
operations. His Baltimore students affectionately 
styled him the " Emperor of Surgeons," and his 
exhaustive treatise on the surgical anatomy of the 
arteries is of itself an enduring monument to his 
name. Dr. James M. Smith was a beloved and suc- 
cessful practitioner in Springfield, Mass., for nearly 
twenty years; he met his death in the Norwalk 
railway disaster, and was succeeded by his son. Dr. 
David P. Smith. Dr. John Derby Smith was a Yale 
graduate of 1832, and studied both theology and 
medicine ; he never engaged in private practice, 
but during the Rebellion served as surgeon at Fair- 
fax Seminary Hospital, and after the war, became 
surgeon in the navy. At the age of sixty-two he 
was placed upon the retired list, and spent the re- 
mainder of his days in private life at his country 
home in Bridgewater, Mass. Of Dr. Nathan Smith's 
fifteen grandsons, nine becaime physicians, of whom 
the older and more widely known are Dr. Nathan 
Smith Lincoln, of Washington, D. C. ; Dr. Allan 
Smith of Baltimore, Md. ; and the late Dr. David 
P. Smith, of Springfield, Mass., the latter occupying 
at his death the same chair of surgery that his 
grandfather had filled so many years before him. 
Of the third generation six have already been added 
to the medical profession. Dr. Charles Sherman 
Smith's mother came from a Rhode Island family 
even more numerously supplied with physicians 
than was his father's. The subject of this sketch 
is therefore, in three generations, one of twenty 
physicians on his father's side, some of whom were of 
national fame, and one of twenty-five on his mother's 
side. He acquired his early education in the dis- 
trict schools and at the Bridgewater High School. 



He graduated from the Medical College of the 
University of New York in the spring of 1892, be- 
ing among the twenty selected for an honor list 
from a class numbering one hundred and sixty 
members. Following his graduation he stood first 
among nine in a competitive examination for the 
position of Interne at the Rhode Island Hospital, 
remained in that institution until May 1894, and 
three months later opened an office in Providence. 
An unusual amount and variety of surgical work has 
come to his hands during his three years' residence 
in that city, requiring and testing all the quaUties of 
a true surgeon. As he has said, water will boil and 




C- S. SMITH. 

bichloride will destroy germs anywhere, and some 
of his best use of the surgeon's knife has been in 
the treatment of hernia and appendicitis in the 
midst of surroundings that might well dismay the 
looker on. Dr. Smith was so fortunate while In- 
terne as never to lose a typhoid patient, a result 
which he attributes largely to a discreet, and yet a 
more than usually persistent, treatment by the 
sponge. In devising ingenious appliances for the 
relief and cure of spinal and hip diseases he has 
brought into play inherited mechanical skill. He is 
an ardent believer in the possibility of arrest of lung 
disease in its earlier stages, and the sufferings of 
motherhood have led him to study closely how to 
reduce them to the greatest extent possible. Lately 



68 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



he has made a successful debut as a laparotomist. 
He is intensely devoted to his profession, and waits 
patiently for the larger successes which come slowly 
but surely to those who set for themselves a high 
standard of professional and personal honor. Dr. 
Smith is a member of the Masonic fraternity, the 
Providence Medical Association and the Rhode Is- 
land Medical Society. He is unmarried. 



STUD LEY, John Edward, manager of real estate 
corporations, Providence, was born in Worcester, 




JOHN E, STUDLEY. 

Mass., November 13, 1852, son of John Moore and 
Julia Ann (Gill) Studley. The Studleys are an old 
English family found in Kent and Yorkshire, the 
seat of the family in the latter county being Studley 
Park. There were two families of this name in New 
England at an early date, one in Boston and one in 
Sandwich, Mass. The Providence Studleys de- 
scended from the Boston branch, and among their 
ancestors was Benjamin Studley who was a lieuten- 
ant in the Massachusetts troops during the war of 
the Revolution, and was a Selectman in Hanover, 
Mass., in [778. The subject of this sketch received 
his early education in the public schools of Worces- 
ter, Mass., Brooklyn, N. Y., and Providence, R. I. 
He graduated from the high school in Providence, 



May 5, 1869. His early training was all of a busi- 
ness character. Much of his spare time out of 
school was employed in a grocery store in the vicinity 
of his home, and later in vacations and on Saturdays 
he was employed in the store of Eddy & Studley. 
In September 1869 he was engaged as clerk in one 
of the freight offices of the New York, Providence 
& Boston Railroad. A few years later his employer 
accepted an important ofifice with the Providence 
and New York Steamship Company, and at his 
request he accompanied him as a cashier, and later 
was appointed head clerk of the company. In 1877 
he took the position of book-keeper and confidential 
clerk of Amos D. Smith & Company, then a large 
cotton manufacturing firm operating the Franklin 
Manufacturing Company and the Providence Steam 
Mills. While in their employ he married the eldest 
daughter of William H. Low, a man who in his line 
of business of leasing and improving real estate had 
done much to build up the business centre of the 
city. In 1 88 1 Mr. Low died suddenly and at the 
request of his heirs Mr Studley resigned his position 
with Amos D. Smith & Company, and assumed the 
management of the estate of William H. Low. This 
management has been very successful and the estate 
has grown largely in value, so much so that it was 
deemed advisable to incorporate it. Consequendy 
in 1889 The William H. Low Estate Company was 
chartered, and since then the business has been 
carried on under that name. At the present time 
he holds the office of President and Treasurer of the 
company. In 1895 the Studley Land Company was 
incorporated and he was chosen President and 
Treasurer ; a large business block was erected on 
Weybosset street known as the Studley Building. 
He is also President of the Weybosset Investment 
Company, and Director in the Providence Gas Com- 
pany, the Manufacturers' National Bank, the .Atlantic 
National Bank and the Atlantic Mutual Fire Insur- 
ance Company of Providence. He has always been 
so deeply engaged in business that he has uniformly 
declined to accept public ofifice, although for years 
solicited to do so, until 1894, when he accepted the 
nomination for Representative in the General Assem 
bly, to which he was elected, and re-elected the suc- 
ceeding year, serving on the Judiciary Committee. 
On his nomination the Providence Daily Journal said : 
" J. Edward Studley of Ward 9 is the strongest man 
on the ticket, and could have had the party nominee 
for Mayor long ago had he desired." In politics he 
is a Republican. He is a member of Adelphoi Lodge 
A. F. &: A. M., in which he has held all the offices, 



1 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



69 



including that of Master, also a member of Provi- 
dence Royal Arch Chapter, of Providence Council 
Royal and Select Masters, and of St. John's Com- 
mandery Knights Templar. He is a Scottish Rite 
Mason, thirty-second degree, and a member of the 
Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, 
also a member of the Providence Press Club, the 
West Side Club, the Providence Athletic Association, 
the Pomham Club of which he was Treasurer for 
one year and President for two years, the Squantum 
Association and the Society of the Sons of the Ameri- 
can Revolution. He is a Companion of the second 
class of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, 
Massachusetts Commandery. He married, Novem- 
ber 21, 1878, Miss E. Lillie Low; they have had 
three children : Ethel, Earle Stowell (deceased) and 
William Low Studley. 



STEVENS, Grenville Smith, homoeopathic phy- 
sician, Providence, was born in Raynham, Mass., 




G. S. STEVENS. 

July 10, 1829. His father was a merchant, and he 
spent his early youth on the farm and in attendance 
at the public schools. In 1848 he entered Brown 
University from which he graduated with the degree 
of A. M. in 1852. He had early adopted medicine as 
his profession, and during the vacations of his college 



course he pursued his preliminary studies in the 
ofifice of Drs. Barrows and Graves, eminent physi- 
cians of Taunton, Mass. Immediately after his 
graduation he entered the office of Dr. A. Howard 
O'Kie, Providence, as a student. In 1853 he at- 
tended a course of medical lectures in Pittsfield, 
Mass., and afterward entered the College of Physi- 
cians and Surgeons in New York, from which he 
graduated with the degree of M. D. in 1854. His 
first service as a physician was in Chicago during 
the cholera epidemic, when his health gave way 
and he returned East. In August 1854 he opened 
an office in Providence, where he soon gained a 
successful practice. After thirteen years of practice 
his health again failed under his exacting labors, 
and he retired to his farm, where he remained for 
two years. In 1869 he returned to Providence and 
resumed the practice which he has continued since. 
Dr. Stevens has been much interested in religious 
matters, and was the originator and one of the 
founders of Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church, 
Providence. He is a member of the Masonic Order, 
and of various medical associations. He was one 
of the founders of the Rhode Island Homoeopathic 
Society and its first Secretary. He married Miss 
Hannah Wheaton Smith, and subsequently Mrs. 
Lydia Browning White ; he has no children. 



SEABURY, TH0M.4S Mumford, merchant, New- 
port, was born in Newport, October 4, 1821, the 
son of Thomas Mumford and Elizabeth Webster 
(Marsh) Seabury. His paternal grandfather was 
John Seabury, brother of Samuel Seabury, the first 
Episcopal Bishop of America; his maternal grand- 
father was Benjamin Marsh. He received his early 
education in the public schools, and at the age of 
fifteen entered the Trader's Bank, now the First 
National, of Newport, as its first clerk. He re- 
mained in that position for four years and then 
opened a boot and shoe store, which he has con- 
tinued up to the present time. He has taken an 
active interest in public affairs. He was a mem- 
ber of the School Board of Newport from 1865 to 
1872, and a member of the Board of Aldermen for 
eight years. He was Senator in the General As- 
sembly from 1877 to 1885. He has been President 
of the First National Bank since 1865 and was 
Vice-President in 1864. He is a deacon of the 
Central Baptist Church, and is Vice-President of 
the Newport Business Men's Association. In poll- 



70 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



tics he is a Republican. He married, November 
15, 1845, Miss Caroline A. Lovie ; they had four 
children : John Cozzens, Caroline, Benjamin Ham- 




T. MUMFORD SEABURy. 



mett and Thomas Mumford, Jr. He married, 
March 30, 1879, Miss Mary Seabury Tilley; they 
have one son, George Tilley Seabury. 



SHEFFIELD, William Paine, Jr., City Solicitor 
of Newport, was born in Newport, January i, 1857, 
the son of William Paine and Lilias White (San- 
ford) Sheffield. He is descended on both sides 
from the early settlers of New England, and both 
families have been settled in Rhode Island since 
the early days of the colony, and have held various 
positions of trust and responsibility in the colony 
and state. He received his early education in the 
private schools of Newport and graduated with honor 
from Phillips Andover Academy in 1873. He grad- 
uated from Brown University in the class of 1877. 
He studied civil and Roman law in the law school 
of the University of Paris, France, and prepared 
for the bar in the office of his father, Hon. Wm. P. 
Sheffield, and at the Harvard Law school. He was 
admitted to the Rhode Island bar in March 1880, 
and located in Newport, where he has since been 



actively engaged in general practice. He was 
elected City Solicitor of Newport in 1891 and holds 
that office at the present time. Since arriving at age 
he has been actively interested in public affairs. He 
was a member of the School Committee of Newport 
from 1885 to 1894, and a portion of the time its 
Chairman. He was State Commissioner on the affairs 
of the Narragansett Indians 1880- 1884, and aid-de- 
camp on the staff of Governor Wetmore with the 
rank of Colonel, 1885-87. He was a member of the 
House of Representatives from Newport, 1885-87, 
1889-90, 1894-96. He is a Director of the Redwood 
Library, and its Secretary for thirteen years ; a Trus- 
tee of the Newport Hospital, the People's Library, 
the Savings Bank of Newport, and connected with 
other charitable and financial institutions. He has 
been especially interested in education, and in pro- 
moting thorough, progressive and practical methods 
of instruction. Since 1882 he has been interested 
in the subject of manual training, and in 1886 in 
association with others instituted and maintained 
in Newport private instruction for boys in wood- 




W. P, SHEFFIELD, JR. 

working. He has also been an advocate for a 
system of manual training in the public schools. 
He married, October 16, 1889, Miss Mary Stevens 
Burdick ; they have three children : Margaret Bur- 
dick, William Paine and Mary Morse Sheffield. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



71 



SPRAGUE, Nathan Brown, musician and com- 
poser, Providence, was born in Greenville, R. I., 
April 25, 1864, son of John S. and Lelotina 
(Phetteplace) Sprague. He received his early 



and of the Masonic order. He married, June 24, 
1884, Miss Lydia A. Irons; they have one son, 
Stanley Sprague. 




N. B. SPRAGUE. 

education in the public schools and in the English 
and Classical schools of Providence. He was early 
attracted to musical studies and pursued them in 
Providence, Boston and New York, and under lead- 
ing masters in England and Germany, acquiring a 
thorough knowledge of the principles of both vocal 
and instrumental harmony. Since 1881 he has 
taught the pianoforte, organ, the cultivation of the 
voice and musical theory in Providence, having a 
large clientage. As a composer, Mr. Sprague has 
produced four complete operas, two of which have 
been performed, about fifty songs, some of which 
have been very popular, a large amount of church 
music, and many pieces for violin, piano and 
orchestra. He is the organist and director of 
music at Grace Episcopal Church, Providence, con- 
ductor of the Narragansett Choral Society of 
Peacedale, R. I., President of the Rhode Island 
Music Teachers' Association, also a member of the 
executive committee and organist and pianist of 
the Arion Club, the leading musical association of 
Providence. He is a member of the Athletic and 
Press clubs of Providence, the Boston Cadet Club, 



SENIOR, Daniel Widmer, manufacturer, Woon- 
socket, was born in Troy, N. Y., July 17, 1849, son 
of Francis and Elizabeth (Widmer) Senior. He 
comes from English stock on his father's side, and 
on the maternal side from Swiss ancestors. He 
was educated in the public schools of Troy, and 
prepared for college under the tuition of Rev. F. 
Widmer, of Fultonville, N. Y., following which he 
entered the office of the Troy Woolen Company. 
After serving as clerk in the office a few years he went 
into the mill of the company, to learn the practical 
and mechanical end of the business. Afterwards 
he studied the art of fancy weaving and designing, 
and finally took up the manufacture of fancy Avoolen 
and worsted goods, rising from weaver to overseer 
and from overseer to superintendent. He was 
Superintendent of the Livingstone Mills, Bristol, Pa., 




D. W. SENIOR. 

from September 1884 to September 1887, and since 
the latter date has held the position of Superin- 
tendent of the Harris Woolen Company's mills at 
Woonsocket. He has just started in business for 
himself, as a member of the firm of Cole, Senior &: 



72 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Co., manufacturers of fine kerseys, meltons and 
fancy cassimeres. Mr. Senior is vice-president of 
the Woonsocket Business Men's Association, and is 
a member of all the Masonic bodies, was Eminent 
Commander of Woonsocket Commandery Knights 
Templar from October 1893 to October 1895, 
High Priest of Union Royal Arch Chapter, and has 
passed through the several offices of the Blue 
Lodge. He is a Republican, but has never held 
political office. He was married, May 12, 1870, to 
Miss Mary J. Button, of Schaghticoke, N. Y., who 
died July 8, 1884 ; two children were born to them, 
both of whom are living : Clare E. and Frank W. 
Senior, the latter now a student at the Philadelphia 
Dental College. 



STINESS, John Henry, Providence, Justice of 
the Supreme Court, is a native of Providence, 
where he was born August 9, 1840, son of PhiHp 
Bessom and Mary (Marsh) Stiness. Judge Stiness 
is descended from sturdy Enghsh stock ; the name 
originally being Staines, pronounced in two sylla- 
bles, and changed to Stiness in America. The 
family settled in Marblehead, Mass., and during the 
Revolutionary war Samuel Stiness, the great-grand- 
father of Judge Stiness, sejved in the famous regi- 
ment recruited mainly among the fishermen of 
Marblehead and vicinity, called " The Amphibious 
Regiment," commanded by Colonel — afterward 
Brigadier General — John Glover. The grandfather 
of Judge Stiness was a sea-captain and during the 
war of 181 2 served as sailing master in the two-gun 
schooner Growler, attached to the squadron under 
command of Capt. Isaac Chauncey in Lake Ontario. 
After the war Capt. Stiness removed to Smithfield, 
R. I., where he died in 18 16. Philip Bessom Stiness, 
the father of Judge Stiness, was born in Marblehead, 
and in his early business life served as a clerk to 
the firm of which Samuel Slater, the famous founder 
of the cotton manufacturing industry in the United 
States, was a member at Slatersville, R. I. He 
afterward engaged in the business of calendering 
cotton goods at Woonsocket, and in a few years be- 
came interested in the manufacture of gimlet- 
pointed screws under a patent obtained by Cullen 
Whipple. He and Mr. Whipple founded the busi- 
ness in Providence in 1838, which resulted in the 
formation of the New England Screw Company. 
Mr. Stiness died in 1878. Judge Stiness's mother 
was Mary Marsh, daughter of John and Lucy 
(Blake) Marsh of Sutton, Mass., and a sister of 



George W. Marsh, a former Grand Master of the 
Grand Lodge of Rhode Island. Judge Stiness re- 
ceived his early education in the Providence public 
schools and at the University Grammar School. 
He entered Brown University in the class of 1861. 
At the close of the Sophomore year he took charge 
of the Hopkins Grammar School, North Providence 
(now the Branch Avenue Grammar School of Prov- 
idence), and remained two years. At the outbreak 
of the civil war he received a commission as Second 
Lieutenant in the Second Regiment New York Ar- 
tillery and served a year and a quarter, acting as 




J. H. STINESS. 

Adjutant and occasionally as Judge Advocate. He 
did not graduate from the University but received 
the honorary degree of A. M. in 1876 and that of 
LL. D. in 1893. After his service in the army he 
studied law in the office of Thurston, Ripley & Co., 
and was admitted to the Rhode Island bar March 
31, 1865, and to the United States Supreme Court 
in January 1875. In 1874-75 l"*^ ^^as a Represen- 
tative in the General Assembly from Providence, 
and was elected a Justice of the Supreme Court on 
April 13, 1875. Among the important decisions 
rendered by Judge Stiness was the one sustaining 
the validity of the trust deed given in behalf of 
their creditors by the A. & W. Sprague Company. 
The Court of Errors in Connecticut had decided 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



73 



that the deed was invalid and this decision had 
been followed by Judge Shipman in the United 
States Circuit Court. Judge Stiness's opinion, how- 
ever, was sustained in the United States Supreme 
Court, where it was contested by General Butler in 
the case of Evan Randolph vs. the Quidnick Com- 
pany, and the Court of Errors in Connecticut mod- 
ified its opinion so as to hold the mortgage valid 
for the assenting creditors, which was the main 
point at issue. Judge Stiness was one of the com- 
missioners for the erection of the Providence County 
Courthouse in 1876-77. In 1882 he was elected 
a trustee of the Providence Public Library and is a 
member of the library committee. In 1893 he was 
elected President of the Brown University Lecture 
Association. He is President of the Rhode Island 
Historical Society, and member of the Churchmen's 
Club, the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the Brotherhood 
of St. Andrew, and other social and fraternal organ- 
izations. In politics Judge Stiness is a Republican. 
He married, November 19, 1868, Miss Maria E. 
Williams ; they have two children : Flora Brown, wife 
of Henry C. Tilden, and Henry Williams Stiness. 



SAWIN, Isaac Warren, homoeopathic physician. 
Providence, was born in Dover, Mass., December 
30, 1823, son of Joel and Mary (Battelle) Sawin. 
He comes of old New England stock, his ances- 
tor Thomas Sawin having emigrated from Boxford, 
county of Suffolk, England, and settled in New 
England between 1647 and 1653. He received his 
early education in the public schools of Massachu- 
setts, supplemented by private teaching and self- 
culture. He studied medicine under Dr. P. T. 
Bowen of Providence, and Dr. C. W. B. Kidder, 
then of Providence but now located in New York, 
who was lecturer on surgery and demonstrator of 
practical and surgical anatomy at the medical 
college in Worcester, Mass. He graduated from 
the Western Homoeopathic College of Cleveland, 
Ohio, March 11, 1857 In 1875 and 1876 he took 
a post-graduate course of clinical study in Vienna, 
Austria. In 1857 he established himself in Centre- 
dale, R. I., and remained there until 1867, when he 
removed to Providence, where he has since contin- 
uously practiced, except for the season spent in study 
in Europe. He was an Assistant Surgeon in the 
Rhode Island Militia under the militia law enacted 
during the war of the Rebellion. He was appointed 
Visiting Physician of the Rhode Island Homoeo- 



pathic Hospital in 1886 and has been a Consulting 
Physician at the same institution since 1892. He is 
also a Consulting Physician in the Providence Homoe- 
opathic Dispensary. He is a member of the Rhode 
Island Homoeopathic Medical Society and a senior 




ISAAC W. SAWIN, 



of the American Institute of Homoeopathy. He 
married, January i, 1849, Miss Olive S. Budlong ; 
they have had children : Adaline Frances (de- 
ceased), Olive Ervina and Ida Estelle Sawin. 



TAFT, Royal Chapin, A. M., banker and manu- 
facturer, is the son of Orsmus and Margaret (Smith) 
Taft. He was born in Northbridge, Mass., February 
14, 1823. His parents removed to Uxbridge, Mass., 
when he was less than one year of age, where he 
remained until his removal to Providence, R. I., in 
July 1844, in which city he has since resided. He 
is a descendant in the seventh generation from 
Robert Taft, one of the original settlers of the town 
of Mendon, Mass., who moved to that town from 
Braintree, Mass., at the close of King Philip's war, 
in 1680. Robert Taft originally came from Scot- 
land, and was a householder while in Braintree, was 
chosen one of the selectmen of Mendon in i68r, 
and he, with his five sons and their descendants, 
has had an important influence upon the history 



74 



MENTOF PROGRESS. 



and affairs of Mendon and Uxbridge. His grand- 
father, Jacob Taft, appears with the rank of private 
on Lexington alarm roll of Capt. Joseph Chapin's 
company, which marched from Uxbridge on the 
alarm of April 19, 1775. He appears with rank of 
Sergeant on muster roll of Captain Seagrave's com- 
pany. Col. Joseph Read's regiment, May i, 1775, 
as also on September 25, 1775, having served in that 
capacity at the battle of Bunker Hill. The subject 
of this sketch had the usual common-school instruc- 
tion in the town of Uxbridge, and the benefit of a 
two-years' term in Worcester Academy. Upon his 
removal to Providence he entered as clerk in the 




ROYAL C. TAFT. 

office of Royal Chapin, who was engaged in busi- 
ness as a woolen manufacturer and dealer in wool. 
After five years' service he was admitted as a 
partner with Mr. Chapin, under the firm name of 
Royal Chapin & Co. In 185 1 he started in the 
wool and manufacturing business with S. Standish 
Bradford, of Pawtucket, as a partner under the 
firm name of Bradford & Taft, which was continued 
as Bradford, Taft & Co., and Taft, Weeden & Co., 
until 1885, when he for a while retired from active 
business. He is now engaged in manufacturing 
both cotton and wool. In 1888 he purchased the 
interest of the late Henry W. Gardner in the 
Coventry Company. He is Treasurer of the Bernon 
Mills at Georgiaville, R. I., and President of the 



Quinebaug Company, located at Brooklyn, Conn. 
He has been for many years prominently identified 
with the financial affairs of the state, as President of 
the Merchants National Bank of Providence since 
1868, as Vice-President of the Providence Institu- 
tion for Savings, and one of the directors of the 
Rhode Island Hospital Trust Company. He is 
also President of the Boston & Providence Railroad, 
and a director of the New York, New Haven & 
Hartford Railroad Company. It may be truly 
remarked in this connection that few men have 
had more influence upon the financial affairs of the 
state than Mr. Taft. Originally a member of the 
Whig party, he has, since the dissolution of that 
party, been a Republican. He was, during 1855 
and 1856, a member of the City Council of the city 
of Providence ; a Representative to the General 
Assembly from that city in 1880, 1881 and 1882, 
and for six years one of the sinking fund com- 
missioners for the state. In April 1888 he was 
elected by the people Governor of the state of 
Rhode Island upon the Republican ticket. He 
held the office one year, and declined a renomina- 
tion on account of the increasing demands of his 
private business. He has held many positions of 
trust and honor in the city and state. He is now 
President of the Rhode Island Hospital, has been a 
member of the board of trustees of Butler Asylum 
for the Insane since 1865, and is Vice-President of 
the Providence Athenaeum. He was associated with 
the late Hon. George H. Corliss as one of the 
Commissioners from the State of Rhode Island to 
the Centennial Exposition of 1876 held in Phila- 
delphia. He received the degree of Master of Arts 
from Brown University in 189 1. He married, Octo- 
ber 31, 1850, Miss Mary Frances, daughter of 
George B. Aimington, M. D., of Pittsford, Vt. ; their 
children are : Mary E. (now Mrs. George M Smith), 
Abby F., Robert W. and Royal C. Taft, Jr. 



TANK, John Thomas, contractor and railroad 
bridge builder, was born in Newton, Mass., June 22, 
1843, the son of John and Caroline Elizabeth 
(Stevens) Tank. His father was born near Truro, 
Cornwall, England, and came to this country at an 
early age. His mother is a native of East Brookfield, 
Mass., and of old New England stock. He received 
his early education in the public schools, and at 
early manhood entered the service of his father, 
who was a prominent railroad contractor. He 
served in various capacities in this work and was 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



75 



early put in charge of a gang of men in the con- 
struction of railroads. In this capacity he was em- 
ployed for several years on the Boston, Hartford & 




JOHN T. TANK. 

Erie, now the New England, Railroad. In 1870 he 
became clerk and afterward superintendent for 
Dawson, Tank & Co., who were general contractors 
and owned a large granite quarry in Connecticut. 
He remained in the employ of this company about 
four years, when it discontinued business, and he 
removed to New York, where he engaged in agri- 
cultural pursuits at Chatham until 1883. He then 
came to Providence, R. I., and engaged in the con- 
tracting business under the firm name of Ingerson 
& Tank. This partnership continued four years, 
when it was dissolved, and he has since carried on the 
business alone. His contracts are usually of heavy 
masonry stonework, and the erection of dams and 
bridges for public works. He is also a dealer in 
granite. In 1889 he leased the Plumer quarry at 
Northbridge, Mass , and the following year pur- 
chased the property ; the output of the quarry has 
been about twenty thousand tons since he took 
possession of it. He is also the owner of the quarry 
formerly owned by Dawson, Tank & Co. Among 
the contracts which he has completed have been 
the construction of bridges on Smith, Gaspee, and 
Francis streets for the new terminal plan of the 
Consolidated Railroad, and at Elmwood avenue, 



Broad street, and Reservoir avenue for the proposed 
Belt Line in Providence, and one at Broad street, 
Lonsdale. He also rebuilt several of the Stonington 
railroad bridges, and did considerable grading for a 
second track between Providence and New London. 
He built a well in Waltham, Mass., considered the 
largest in the United States. It is fifty feet in 
diameter and was constructed by the city for water 
supply at a cost of ;^ 15, 000. He has now completed, 
at Lonsdale, a dam and bridge across the Blackstone 
River for the Lonsdale Company, which cost 
$150,000, and another at Ashton for the same com- 
pany which cost $75,000, and has just completed 
the new Central or Red Bridge across the Seekonk 
River, at Providence. He is a member of the New 
England Granite Manufacturing Association, and is 
Secretary of the Granite Manufacturing Association 
of Rhode Island. In politics he is a Republican 
always. He married, in 1868, Miss Euphemia 
Shufelt of Chatham, N. Y. j they have one son : 
Morton Richard Tank. 



TANGUAY, John Baptist Antony, physician and 
surgeon. Providence, was born in St. Rosalie, county 




J. B. A. TANGUAY. 



of Bagot, Province of Quebec, Canada, 
1846, son of Joseph and Eulalie (Yon) 
He is descended from old and respected 



April 3, 
Tanguay. 
Canadian 



76 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



families. He received his early education at the 
Seminary of St. Hyacinthe, P. Q. He adopted 
medicine as a profession, and studied for three 
sessions at M'Gill Medical College, Montreal, and 
one session at the Victoria College, from which he 
graduated in 1869. He first practiced in St. Hy- 
acinthe, and removed to Providence in 1882, being 
the first French physician to establish himself in 
the city. He is a member of the Rhode Island 
Medical Society, the Canada Medical Society, a 
member and one of the founders of the Massachu- 
setts Canadian Medical Society, the St. Louis 
Medical Society, the North American Physician 
and Surgeons Protection Society, of Court Thomas 
A. Doyle Ancient Order of Foresters, Providence 
Sanctuary A. O. of S of A., the St. John Baptist 
Society, Naturalization Club, and Catholic Knights 
of America. He married, February 8, 1875, Miss 
Vitaline, a daughter of Prosper Cloutier, Esq. ; they 
had children : J. A. Edgar, J. B. P. Raphael, Marie 
Antoinette Blanche, Marie Corinne, and two others 
who died in infancy. 



WALKER, General William Russell, architect, 
Providence, and Deputy Grand Commander of the 
Grand Commandery Knights Templar of Massachu- 
setts and Rhode Island, was born in Seekonk, Mass. 
(now East Providence, R. I.), April 14, 1830, the 
son of Alfred and Huldah Bardeen (Perry) Walker. 
He is a descendant in the third generation of John 
Walker of Rehoboth, Mass., who was a Sergeant in 
the Minute Men from Rehoboth in the Lexington 
alarm and in service during the war of the Revolu- 
tion. John Walker was descended in the fourth 
generation from the Widow Walker, who came into 
the Plymouth Colony at a date unknown, and who 
was previous to 1643 one of the purchasers and pro- 
prietors of the town of Rehoboth. Who her hus- 
band was, or what part of the old country she came 
from, is unknown; but that she and her two sons 
were the founders of the family of Walker in South- 
ern Massachusetts is unquestionable. The subject 
of this sketch attended the public schools of his 
native town, and after graduating from the Seekonk 
Classical Academy in 1846, went to Providence and 
became a builder's apprentice, serving for a term of 
three years, during which time he continued his 
studies and began mechanical and architectural 
drawing at the Schofield College. After completing 
his apprenticeship he removed to Augusta, Ga., re- 
maining there for about a year, and then returned 



to Rhode Island and located in Pawtucket, where 
he has since resided. In 1864 he established him- 
self as an architect in Providence, in which pro- 
fession he has ever since been engaged. He has 
been closely identified with public life in his adopted 
city and the state, having served as a member of the 




W. R, WALKER. 

Town Councils of both North Providence and Paw- 
tucket, and also having served both towns as a mem- 
ber of the General Assembly of the state. At the 
breaking out of the Rebellion he was commissioned 
First Lieutenant of Company C, First Regiment 
Rhode Island Detached Militia, and served until 
the mustering out of his regiment. He was a com- 
missioned officer of the state militia for more than 
twenty years, retiring with the rank of Major Gen- 
eral in June 1879. He is Past Commander of Tower 
Post G. A. R., and is at the present time a member 
of the Board of Park Commissioners of the city of 
Pawtucket. In politics he is a Republican, and was 
a delegate to the Republican National Convention 
at Chicago in 188S. General Walker became a 
member of Union Lodge No. 10, A. F. & A. M., in 
1857, received his capitular degrees in Pawtucket 
Royal Arch Chapter No. 4, was knighted in Holy 
Sepulchre Commandery No. 8 in 187 1, and has 
served three terms as Eminent Commander of that 
body. He is a member of Providence Consistory 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



n 



Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, and of Pales- 
tine Temple Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the 
Mystic Shrine. In the Grand Commandery of 
Knights Templar of Massachusetts and Rhode 
Island he has filled the offices of Grand Lecturer, 
Grand Standard Bearer, Grand Junior Warden, 
Grand Senior Warden, Grand Captain-General and 
Grand Generalissimo, and at the annual session of 
that body in October 1895 he was elected Deputy 
Grand Commander, which office he now holds. 
General Walker was married in 1852 to Miss Eliza 
Billings Hall, daughter of Nathan Hall of Provi- 
dence j she passed away February 21, 1896; they 
had two children : George Clifton, born November 
7, 1853, died June i, 1883; and William Howard, 
born January 19, 1856, who resides in Pawtucket 
and is associated in business with his father, under 
the name of William R. Walker & Son, as architects 
in Providence. 



WARD, Abner Herbert, dairy and poultry farmer, 
Middletown, was born in Middletown, September 6, 




A. H. WARD. 

1854, the son of John B. and Ann S. (Sherman) 
Ward. His ancestors on both sides were of old 
Rhode Island families, and on his mother's side 
were members of the Society of Friends. He re- 
ceived his early education in the public schools of 



Middletown and Newport. Later he attended East 
Greenwich Academy and graduated from a commer- 
cial college in 1878. He worked for his father on 
a dairy and stock farm for several years before start- 
ing for himself. He commenced the business of 
dairy and poultry farming in 1880, and has con- 
ducted it successfully ever since, supplying a large 
number of the principal summer residents of New- 
port with milk, cream and eggs. He has been a 
member of the Town Council of Middletown since 
April 1884, and President of that body since 1892. 
He was elected a Representative to the General As- 
sembly in 1893 and re-elected for successive terms 
since. He is a member of Coronet Council Royal 
Arcanum, of Aquidneck Grange Patrons of Hus- 
bandry, and is Treasurer of Chapter 666, Middle- 
town, Ep worth League. In politics he has always 
been a Republican. He married, February 24, 1880, 
Miss Annie Medora Brown of Middletown, at White- 
hall Farm, the former residence of Bishop Berkeley ; 
they have four children : Helen M., A. Sadie, Charles 
H., 2d, and Medora May Ward. 



WILCOX, George Dawley, physician and sur- 
geon, Providence, was born in West Greenwich, R. I., 
August 28, 1825, son of John and Dorcas (Tanner) 
Wilcox. He came from Revolutionary ancestry on 
both sides. He received his early education in the 
common schools, and graduated in medicine from 
the University of New York in 1849. -^^ began 
the practice of medicine in his native town in the 
spring of 1849. In 1852, he removed to Phenix 
Village, Warwick, R. I. In 1856, he became asso- 
ciated with Dr. A. Howard Okie, in Providence. 
In 1858 he went to Germany and pursued his 
medical studies in Vienna, Prague and Leipsic for 
two years, and then went to London, where he was 
appointed Medical Interne to the London Homoe- 
opathic Hospital, Great Ormond Street. He re- 
sumed practice in Providence in i860. In 1870 
he became associated with Dr. Ira Barrows, with 
whom he remained in partnership until the death 
of the latter in 1882. From that time he has been 
associated with Dr. Annie W. Hunt, a former 
pupil. In May, 1862, he was commissioned 
Surgeon of the Tenth Regiment, Rhode Island 
Volunteers, and served with the regiment in the 
field. In July 1884 he was appointed by Governor 
Bourne one of the two Medical Examiners for the 
city of Providence for six years, and was re-ap- 
pointed at the end of that time, and resigned after 



78 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



serving a year. He is a member of the Rhode 
Island Homoeopathic Medical Society, honorary 
member of the Medico-Legal Society of Rhode 
Island and the British Homoeopathic Medical 
Society of London, and Corresponding Mitglied 
des Homoeopathischen Central Vereins of Leipzig. 
In politics he is a Republican, but has not taken an 
active part in public affairs. In 1854 he married 
Miss Mary Fry, who died September 17, 1857 ; they 



1885 he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to the 
First Light Infantry Regiment and served until 
1888. He is a member of the Rhode]Island State 




GEO. D. WILCOX. 



had one son, Frank Howard. In 1862 he married 
Miss Mary Caroline, daughter of Rev. Daniel 
Leach, of Boston, Mass. ; by this union were two 
children : Mary Lawton and Alice Palmer Wilcox. 



WILLIAMS, Horace Newell, physician and 
surgeon, Providence, was born in Uxbridge, Mass., 
January 2, 1861, son of Nicholas B. and Charlotte 
E. (Newell) Williams. He received his early edu- 
cation in the public schools and the High School of 
Uxbridge. Adopting medicine as his profession he 
entered the Bellevue Medical College, New York, 
from which he graduated in 1882. He then served 
in the surgical department at Bellevue Hospital, 
from which he graduated in 1884. In that year he 
established himself in Providence, where he has 
secured an extensive and lucrative practice. In 




H. N. WILLIAMS. 

Medical Society, the Providence Medical Associa- 
tion, and of the Society of the Alumni of Bellevue 
Hospital. He is a member of Solomon Temple 
A. F. & A. M., of Uxbridge, of Providence Royal 
Arch Chapter and St. John's Commandery. He 
married, April 30, 1890, Miss Carrie L. Peirce ; 
they have one child, Charlotte Peirce Williams. 



WARDWELL, Willum Thom.a.s Church, lumber 
merchant and banker, was born in Bristol, R. I ., 
September 20, 1835, son of Hezekiah Church and 
Sallie (Gifford) Wardwell. He comes of good old 
New England stock, and is descended from William 
Wardwell, who landed in Boston in 1633 ; his son 
Uzelle came to Bristol on the settlement of the 
town in 1680, and his grandson, William, married 
the granddaughter of John Howland who came 
over in the Mayflower. From this union the 
subject of this sketch is descended. His mother, 
Sallie Gifford, was the lineal descendant of Sir 
Walter Gifford, who landed in Massachusetts Bay 
in 1630. His grandmother, Elizabeth Church, was 
a descendant of Captain Benjamin Church of In- 




^J^^/ 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



79 



dian wars fame. He received his early educa- 
tion in the public schools and academy of Bristol, 
and was one of the first scholars in the high school 
in 1848. He first learned the business of a jeweler 
with Sackett, Davis & Potter of Providence, from 
1853 to 1856, then spent some time in Cuba and 
the city of New York. He came back to Bristol in 
1859, and with his brother, Samuel D. Wardwell, 
succeeded their father, Hezekiah C. Wardwell, who 
had been in the same business and the same place 
since the early part of the century, in the lumber 
business at the foot of Bradford street, corner of 
Thames. He continued in business with his brother 
until 1872, when he purchased his brother's inter- 
est, and continued the business until 1894, when 
the Wardwell Lumber Company was organized with 
W. T. C. Wardwell as President. He has taken an 
active part in public and business affairs. He has 
been a Representative and Senator in the General 
Assembly from Bristol and was Lieutenant-Governor 
of the State in 1890-91. He is President of the 
First National Bank of Bristol and a Director of the 
Industrial Trust Company of Providence. He is 
a member of the vestry of St. Michael's Church, 
Bristol. He is a member of the Masonic order to 
the thirty- second degree and has filled various 
offices in the organization up to Grand High Priest 
of the State of Rhode Island. He is a member of 
the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. 
In politics he is a Democrat, and was the candidate 
of his party for Governor in 1893. He married, 
November 24, 1874, Miss Leonora Frances Glad- 
ding ; they have three children : Hezekiah Church, 
Bessie Uzelle and Marguerite Wardwell. 



WILLIAMS, Alfred Mason, journalist and author, 
was born in Taunton, Mass., October 23, 1840, son 
of Lloyd Hall and Prudence King (Padelford) Wil- 
liams. His remote ancestry on both sides were 
Welsh. His ancestor, Richard Williams, came from 
Taunton, Somersetshire, England, and founded the 
town of Taunton, Mass. His great-grandfather, 
James Williams, was a captain during the Revolu- 
tionary war, and for a long series of years town clerk 
of Taunton. His great uncle, John Mason Williams, 
was Chief Justice of the Common Plea Court of 
Massachusetts. His maternal ancestors for several 
generations were seafaring men. He received his 
early education in the public and private schools of 
Taunton, and was fitted for college at Bristol Acad- 
emy. He entered Brown University in the class of 



i860, but was compelled to leave before the com- 
pletion of the course on account of weakness 
of the eyes brought on by over use. During 
the civil war he enlisted in Company K, Fourth 
Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, and took part 
in the Louisiana campaign under General Banks. 
Having written some letters from the war to the news- 
papers, he was invited, on his return at the expira- 
tion of his term of service, to accept a position as 
reporter on the Taunton Daily Gazette. In 1865 
he was appointed by the New York Tribune to report 
the Fenian disturbance in Ireland. On landing at 
Queenstown he was arrested on suspicion of being 




ALFRED M. WILLIAMS. 

a Fenian emissary and detained a week, while his 
papers were being examined in Dublin. When it 
was discovered that he was no more dangerous a 
personage than a newspaper correspondent, he was 
released, and he reported the trials of O'Donovan 
Rossa and other Fenian leaders in Dublin, besides 
giving sketches of the people and country for several 
American newspapers. On his return he took the 
position of city editor of the Gazette, and was after- 
ward managing editor. In 1868 he was elected a 
Representative to the Massachusetts Legislature and 
re-elected the following year by unanimous vote of 
both parties. In the fall of 1869 he went West and 
established the Neosho Journal in Neosho, a town in 
the southwest corner of Missouri near the Indian 



8o 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Territory. While there he spent much time with the 
Indians in the Territory, and was secretary pro tern. 
of the last grand council of all the tribes held at Ok- 
mulgee in the Creek Nation. Camp life and exposure 
during a peculiarly wet season brought on a severe 
attack of fever and ague, which compelled him to 
abandon his enterprise and return East. He ob- 
tained a position on the local staff of the Provi- 
dence Journal, and after about six months was pro- 
moted to the position of chief editorial writer, which 
he held until the death of George W. Danielson 
in 1884, when he became editor-in-chief. He held 
this position, acquiring also a share in the corpora- 
tion, until 1891, when he resigned while on a visit 
to Europe. Since his retirement he has contributed 
a large number of articles to magazines and news- 
papers on literary and kindred subjects. He has 
published " The Poets and Poetry of Ireland " with 
Historical and Critical Essays and Notes, Boston, 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1880; an introduction to 
the popular edition of the poems of Sir Samuel 
Fergerson, Dublin, Seeley, Bryers & Walker, 1887; 
" Sam Houston and the War of Independence in 
Texas," Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1893; "Studies 
in Folk Song and Popular Poetry," Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co., London, Eliot Stock, 1894. In 1882 
he received the honorary degree of A. M. from 
Brown University. In 1888 he was elected a trustee 
of the Public Library of Providence and has held 
that position since, serving on the library committee 
and as chairman of the committee to purchase a 
site and procure plans for a new building. He was 
one of the charter members and an early Com- 
mander of William H. Bartlett Post 3, G. A. R., 
Department of Massachusetts, and has been Vice- 
President of the Fourth Regiment Veteran Associa- 
tion. He was the founder and the first President of 
the Providence Press Club. He is a member of 
the English and American Folk-Lore societies, of 
the Irish Literary Society of London, of the Ameri- 
can Historical Society, of the Indian Rights Asso- 
ciation, of the Sons of the American Revolution, 
and the United States Veteran Volunteer Association 
of Rhode Island. He married, July 5, 1870, Miss 
Cora Allen Leonard of Taunton, Mass., who died 
December 11, 1886; he has no children. 



side he is of French descent and on his maternal 
side of English. He received his early education 
in the district and high schools of Connecticut 
He adopted medicine as a profession and gradu- 
ated from the Berkshire Medical College of Pitts- 
field, Mass., November 8, 1865. He first practised 
in Sterling, Conn., from December 1865 to 1869, 
when he removed to Anthony, R. I., where he has 
since remained, having a large practice. He is also 
sole proprietor of a large drug store there since 
1878. He was elected State Senator for two terms. 




WiNSOR, John, physician and druggist, Anthony, 
was born in Sterling, Conn., May 18, 1843, son of 
Ira and Almira (Main) Winsor. On the paternal 



JOHN WINSOR. 



1884-85, for the town of Coventry. He was ap- 
pointed Medical Examiner of District No. i, of 
Kent County, in 1884 and reappointed in 1890. 
He is a member of the Rhode Island Medical 
Society, member and ex-president of the Rhode 
Island Medico-Legal Society, member of the \\'ar- 
wick and Flat River clubs, and the Literary Club of 
Anthony, of McGregor Post G. A. R., of Grand 
Lodge and Grand Encampment of Odd Fellows, 
of the Grand Lodge of Masons of Rhode Island, 
and is a thirty-second degree Mason. In poli- 
tics he is an active Republican. He married, 
September 22, 1878, Miss Carrie A. Bowen ; they 
have no children. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



PART II. 



ALMY, Herbert, attorney-at-law, was born in 
Providence, February 25, 185 1, the son of Hum- 
phrey and Amey Ann (Chase) Ahiny. He came of 



married, February 21, 1884, Miss Lydia F. Kelton; 
they have four children : Bertha K., Carrie W., Ada 
F. and Marion Almy. 




HERBERT ALMY. 

well-known and respected Rhode Island ancestry. 
He received his early education in the public 
schools of Providence, and was fitted for college at 
Merrick-Lyon's University Grammar School. He 
graduated from Brown University in the class of 
1873. He adopted the law as a profession, and 
was a student in the office of the late Wingate 
Hayes and the present Chief Justice Matteson 
He was Assistant Clerk of the Supreme Court from 
December 1876 to April 1885, since which time he 
has successfully practised his profession in Provi- 
dence. He is not a member of any societies or 
clubs, and has taken no part in public life. He 



AMES, George Henry, D. M. D., of Provi- 
dence, was born in Foxboro, Mass , April 24, 1848, 
son of Benjamin Keath and Sarah Durbey (Carpen- 
ter) Ames. The family has been long prominent 
in the history of New England ; it came originally 
from Somersetshire, England, in the person of 
William Ames, born at Burton, October 6, 1605, 
who settled at Braintree, Mass., very early in the 
planting of New England, and from a large and 
excellent posterity descended. The first English 
settler died in Braintree, January 11, 1654. Dr. 
Ames's parents came to dwell in Providence in 
1855, and young Ames was entered as a pupil in 
the Providence schools, where the foundation of 
his education was laid ; subsequently the young 
student was entered at the Lapham Institute, which 
institution had succeeded the Smithfield Academy, 
then among the inost distinguished of the secondary 
schools in New England. After graduation from 
this institution young Ames was sent to Biddeford, 
Me., where he entered the office of Thomas Haley, 
D. M. D., for the purpose of acquiring some prac- 
tical knowledge of the science of dental surgery. 
One year was spent in this pursuit, until the autumn 
of 1870, at which time young Ames entered the 
Dental School at Harvard University, where he 
pursued the full course two years, and was gradu- 
ated February 14, 1872. Doctor Ames then opened 
an office in the town where he was born, Foxboro, 
Mass., for the practice of his profession. At the 
end of a year, in May 1873, he opened a second 
office, the latter in Butler's Exchange in Provi- 
dence, R. I. ; but he still accepted appointments at 
Foxboro, making weekly visits to that town for that 
purpose. In the meantime the requirements of 



82 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



practice which developed at the Providence ofifice 
so fully occupied his time that the visits to Foxboro 
were forced to be abandoned. In 1874 he entered 
into partnership with T. D. Thompson, D. D. S., 
the two surgeons joined offices, and for three years, 



leading clubs and societies of Providence, in which 
pleasing relations he finds that rest and recuper- 
ation which the severe practice of his profession 
necessitates. 




GEO. H. AMES. 

until September 1877, this business arrangement 
was continued. In September of that year, he 
succeeded to the business of WiUiam B. Dennis, 
D. D. S., whose ofifice was then at No. 17 Mathew- 
son street, Providence. Here Dr. Ames developed 
one of the finest practices of dental surgery which 
had been known in that city. In 1879 he visited 
Europe, partly for rest and pleasure, and partly in 
pursuit of the further development of his profession. 
In 1888 he removed to his elegant and admirably 
fitted quarters on Snow street, which were especially 
fitted with every appliance that modern science 
had developed for the skilful practice of dentistry, 
and where a liberal share of the best patronage has 
fallen to his lot. Dr. Ames married first, June 26, 
1872, Miss Myra Hatton, of Port Clyde, Me. ; one 
son, Reginald Mountford Ames, was born of this 
marriage; Mrs. Ames died January i, 1879. His 
second wife was Miss Isabel Brownell, daughter of 
Stephen and Henrietta (Hunt) Brownell. The 
Doctor and Mrs. Ames are active in all the best 
society movements in Providence. He has long 
been connected by membership with several of the 



ANTHONY, Charles Wilfred, architect, was 
born in Providence, May 19, 1854, son of Henry E. 
and Lucy Dudley (McKnight) Anthony. He be- 
longs to the Anthony line so long prominent and 
well known in Rhode Island. He received his 
early education in the public schools of Providence, 
and was a student in the classical department of 
Mowry & Goff's Classical School in that city. He 
adopted the profession of architecture, and for a 
number of years has been a member of the firm of 
Anthony Brothers, architects, of Providence. Mr. 
Anthony is well known and his original and unique 
designs for buildings have met with high commen- 
dation and attracted favorable notice outside of 
local circles. He leads a quiet bachelor life and is 
a congenial, companionable man to meet, being 
possessed of an ample fund of information in gen- 




CHAS. W. ANTHONY, 

eral, as well as on professional subjects, that enables 
him to acceptably entertain his friends as well as 
his clients. In politics he is a Republican, and has 
always been a thorough advocate of sound financial 
measures. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



83 



ARNOLD, Warren Otis, of Chepachet, manu- 
facturer, and Representative to Congress from the 
Second District of Rhode Island, was born in Cov- 
entry, R. I., June 3, 1839, son of Otis Whitman and 
Carohne M. (Sweetser) Arnold. He was educated 
in the common schools, and received his training 
for active life as an operative in a cotton factory 
and as clerk in a country store. In 1864 he en- 
tered into the cotton manufacturing business for 
himself, in which he continued two years, and since 
then has been engaged in the manufacture of 
woolen goods. He was a Representative from the 




WARREN O. ARNOLD. 

Second District of Rhode Island to the Fiftieth 
Congress, was re-elected to the Fifty-first, and was 
elected to the Fifty-fourth Congress in 1894. In 
politics he is a Republican. He was married, Oc- 
tober 30, 1862, to Miss Mary Owen; they have no 
children. 



BABCOCK, Albert Stillman, merchant, Rock- 
ville, was born in Ashaway, R. I., November 15, 
1 85 1, the son of Welcome B. and Mary (Rogers) 
Babcock. His ancestors on both sides are of well- 
known Rhode Island families. He received his 
early education in the Hopkinton Academy, and was 
pursuing the highest course of studies, alone in his 
class, at the closing of that institution. He then at 



once entered the employ of the Ashaway Union As- 
sociation as a clerk in the general store, and suc- 
ceeded as general manager at the close of one year. 
Shortly afterward, at the age of eighteen, he taught 
school for a while in the Quarryhill district of Wes- 




albert s. babcock. 

terly. He removed to Rockville in the spring of 
187 1, and was engaged' in the Rockville store of 
which he became the proprietor April i, 1878. 
He has since continued in business there, combin- 
ing with other work considerable real estate busi- 
ness. He was Postmaster in Rockville from June 
1877 to June 1893, when he resigned to enter the 
State Senate, of which he has been a member since 
that time. He married. May 4, 1878, Miss Lantie 
A. Burdick, daughter of Gardner and Betsey Bur- 
dick of Rockville ; they have one daughter, Lyra A. 
Babcock. 



BAKER, Darius, Justice of the District Court 
for the First Judicial District of Rhode Island, 
and Judge of the Probate Court of Newport, was 
born in Yarmouth, Mass., January 18, 1845, ^^^ ^^ 
Braddock and Caroline (Crowell) Baker. He is 
descended on both sides from Plymouth Bay Colony 
ancestry. Six of his ancestors came over in the 
Mayflower in 1620, viz., Stephen Hopkins and his 
daughter Constance ; John Howland ; Elizabeth 



84 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Tilley, who afterwards married John Rowland ; and 
John and Bridget (Van der Velde) Tilley, parents 
of Elizabeth. Among his ancestors are also Gover- 
nor Thomas Prence, for eighteen years governor of 
Plymouth Colony ; Yelverton Crowell, the first set- 
tler of the south side of the town of Yarmouth, 
about 1640; Francis Baker, who came over in 1635 
in the ship Planter from Great St. Albans, England ; 
and Captain John Gorham, who married a daughter 
of John Rowland, sttpra. Gorham was captain of a 
company at the famous swamp fight with the Indians 
at Narragansett, and is the ancestor of a numerous 
and distinguished posterity, including John Gorham 




DARIUS BAKER. 

Palfrey the historian, Ron. Charles Francis Adams, 
William Everett and others. The subject of this 
sketch acquired his early education in the public 
schools of Yarmouth, and at the Providence Con- 
ference Seminary, East Greenwich, R. I. He 
graduated from Wesleyan University in 1870, saluta- 
torian of his class, and the next two years he was a 
teacher at Chamberlain Institute, Randolph, N. Y. 
From 1872 to 1874 he was tutor in Latin at Wes- 
leyan University, at the same time pursuing his 
legal studies, having decided to adopt the law as a 
profession. He was admitted to the Connecticut 
Ear in 1874, and to the Rhode Island Bar in 1875, 
and in the same year established himself in 
Newport, where he has since remained in successful 



practice. He served as Trial Justice of the city 
from 1875 to 1886, has been Judge of the Probate 
Court of Newport from 1877 to the present time, 
and in 1886 was elected Justice of the District 
Court for the First Judicial District, which office he 
still holds. Re served as a member of the School 
Committee from 1877 to 1883, and for the last two 
years of his term as chairman of that body, and has 
been elected by the alumni, for two terms of five 
years each, a Trustee of Wesleyan University. 
Judge Baker has taken an active interest in the 
charitable work of Newport, being president of the 
Charity Organization Society and a member of 
various other charitable organizations, and serving 
as a trustee of the Newport Hospital for the past 
ten years. He is also a member of the Newport 
Business Men's Association. In politics he is a 
Republican, but has taken no active part in public 
life other than as stated. During the war of the 
Rebellion, at the age of seventeen, he enlisted in the 
Fifth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, and 
served nine months, mostly in North Carolina, par- 
ticipating in engagements at Kinston, Whitehall and 
Goldsboro. Re was married October 30, 1878, to 
Miss Annie Barker, daughter of W. J. Barker, 
Ph. D., of Leipsic, Germany; she died October 7, 
] 886, leaving two children : Hugh Barkly and 
George Yelverton Baker. On October 8, 1891, he 
married Miss Bertha A. Neales, daughter of Arch- 
deacon Thomas Neales of Woodstock, New Bruns- 
wick ; they have two children : Dorothy Neales and 
Alfred Colebrooke Baker. 



B.AiLLOU, Colonel Daniel R., attorney-at-law, 
was born at Smithfield, R. I , August 6, 1837, eldest 
son of the late Arnold and Roxa (Ross) Ballou. 
He is a lineal descendant of Maturin Ballou, who 
settled in Providence about the year 1646. Ac- 
cording to the best authenticated information 
Maturin Ballou was a native of England and a de- 
scendant of the famous Norman chieftain, Guine- 
bond Belleau, a field marshal of William the Con- 
queror at the battle of Hastings, in 1066. Descend- 
ants of this ancestor are found in the different 
counties of England and Ireland, where they have 
long enjoyed distinguished heritage and honors. 
He received his early education in the public and 
private schools of his native state and completed 
his student life at Brown University. Upon leaving 
college he at once entered on the studv of the law 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



85 



at Providence and was admitted to the bar in May 
1864. He was largely dependent upon his own re- 
sources, and passed through the usual experiences 
incident to a young man striving for an education. 
Among the most valuable experiences of his earlier 
days were those incurred during the eight winters 
spent in teaching school in the country and " board- 
ing round " the district. He commenced the prac- 
tice of the law in Greenville and North Scituate, in 
1864, and continued in business there until 1867, 
when he was elected Clerk of the Court of Common 
Pleas, for Providence county, which office he filled 
until the spring of 1875, when he retired, declining 




DAN'L R, BALLOU. 

a re-election. He then resumed the practice of 
law in Providence, and has continued in active 
practice ever since. His son-in-law, Clifford S. 
Tower, is associated with him in professional busi- 
ness, under the firm name of Ballou & Tower. 
Colonel Ballou served as a Representative in the 
General Assembly from his native town of Smith- 
field, to which office he was elected in 1865 and 
was returned in 1866 and 1867. He represented 
the city of Providence in the General Assembly in 
1882, and was defeated at the next election, but 
was returned again in 1884. He resigned in the 
fall of that year in consequence of increasing pro- 
fessional business. During this term in the General 
Assembly he was Chairman of the Committee on 



Corporations. He represented the Seventh Ward 
in the City Council of Providence during the year 
1886, but the next year he declined a re-election. 
He has also served on the School Committee of the 
city of Providence. He was elected Alderman 
from the Ninth Ward in the fall of 1891, and occu- 
pied a seat in the Board during the years 1892-93- 
94, and was honored by his associates who elevated 
him to the position of President of the Board, in 
which capacity he served during the years 1893 and 
1894. In 1890 he was nominated for the office of 
Attorney-General by the Republican State Conven- 
tion ; he reluctantly and with grateful appreciation 
of the distinguished honor, dechned to accept, on 
account of the pressure of professional business. 
In 1862, during the Civil War, he enlisted as a 
private in the Twelfth Rhode Island Volunteers, a 
nine-months regiment, and was promoted to a 
Lieutenancy. He was engaged with the regiment, 
which was in General Nagle's brigade, General 
Sturgis' Division of the Ninth Corps, in the Battle 
of Fredericksburg on December 12th and 13th, 
1862, in which battle the regiment suffered a loss of 
109 men, killed and wounded. He accompanied 
his regiment when it was transferred to the Depart- 
ment of Ohio, under General Burnside, in 1863, 
where it performed arduous and valuable service in 
holding Morgan and his guerrillas in check in Ken- 
tucky. On his return home from the army, he was 
commissioned by Governor James Y. Smith, Colonel 
of the Seventh Regiment Rhode Island MiHtia, 
which had been armed and equipped in anticipa- 
tion of active service. Colonel Ballou has been 
prominent in the Grand Army of the Republic, 
having filled nearly every position in the gift of the 
Department of Rhode Island, and during the past 
year, 1895, he held the position of Department 
Commander. He is a member of the Massachu- 
setts Commandery of the Military Order of the 
Loyal Legion, and is also a member of the Provi- 
dence Athletic Club and the Providence Bar Club. 
In politics he has been a life-long Republican and 
has taken an active part in every national campaign 
from the nomination of General Fremont, in 1856, 
to the late Presidential election. He married Miss 
Ellen R. Owen of Scituate, Rhode Island, daughter 
of Benj. and Betsey Owen; this union has been 
blessed with two daughters : Leonora L., who is the 
wife of Dr. Jacob Chase Rutherford, a prosperous 
physician of Providence, and Fannie R., the wife of 
Clifford Sayles Tower, the associate of Colonel 
Ballou in professional business. 



86 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



BARKER, Colonel Alvin Arnold, Newport, was 
born in Middletown, R. I., November 29, 1858, son 
of Ezra J. and Lydia Eunice Barker. He was born 
and grew up on a farm, receiving his education in 



■ 




F^ 


-..^'^^^^^^=_- --.'sHfl 




jP 


mm 


^H^HHHUm&l'^^HH 



its charter from the colonial government under King 
George II. February i, 1741. It has taken part in 
all the wars of the country from the date of its 
charter, and has done escort duty at the inaugural 
of every Rhode Island governor from 1796 to the 
present time. Colonel Barker is a member of 
Coronet Council No. 63 Royal Arcanum, having 
joined October 17, 1884. In politics he is a Re- 
publican. He was married, November 2, 1882, to 
Miss Augusta Neilson Peckham of Middletown, R. I., 
by whom he has four children : Ezra J. Barker 2d, 
Lydia Elizabeth, Myitalie and Alva A. Barker. 



BARNEFIELD, Thomas Pierce, City Solicitor 
of Pawtucket, was born in Boston, Mass., March 25, 
1844, son of John and Eliza Ann (Thayer) Barne- 
field. He is descended in the ninth generation on 
his mother's side from John Aklen who came to 
America in the Mayflower in 1620, and is a son of 
John Barnefield, formerly of Gloucestershire, Eng- 
land, a descendant of John of Barneveld, who was 
the Grand Pensionary of Holland in the beginning 



A. A. BARKER. 



the public schools, until at the age of fifteen, in 
1873, he moved to Newport where he prepared 
himself for a business life. In 1878 he launched 
out for himself in the grocery, grain and hay busi- 
ness, which he has successfully continued to the 
present time. He was a member of the Newport 
City Council in 1892, representing the second ward 
as second councilman, but declined a re-election, 
preferring to give his time to his private business. 
He joined the Newport Artillery, Rhode Island 
MiUtia, July 27, 1875, and was elected First Lieute- 
nant and Quartermaster April 25, 1882, serving 
three years in this capacity. April 28, 1885, he 
was elected Major, and held this position three 
years. He was appointed, May 29, 1888, aide-de- 
camp on Governor Royal C. Taft's personal staff, 
with the rank of Colonel. He was elected Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the Newport Artillery August 30, 1892, 
and Colonel commanding April 24, 1894, which posi- 
tion and rank he now holds. The Newport Artil- 
lery is the oldest active military organization in the 
United States. It was organized during the trou- 
blous time occasioned by the declaration of war 
between England and Spain in 1739, and received 




THOMAS P. BARNEFIELD. 

of the seventeenth century. His father died when 
he was eight years of age, and in 1854, upon the 
subsequent marriage of his mother with Martin 
Snow of North Bridgewater (now Brockton), Mass., 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



87 



he removed to the latter place and was educated in 
the public schools of Massachusetts. In 1862 he 
enlisted as a private soldier in the Thirty-fifth Regi- 
ment Massachusetts Volunteers, served with his 
regiment in the battles of South Mountain, Antietam, 
Fredericksburg, Vicksburg and Jackson, and was 
mustered out of the service at the close of the war 
with the rank of First Lieutenant. He removed to 
Pawtucket in 1865, and entered as a student in the 
law office of Hon. Pardon E. Tillinghast, one of the 
judges of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island. He 
was admitted to the bar October 8, 1870, and has 
since practiced his profession in Pawtucket. He 
was elected by the Legislature a Judge of the Magis- 
trates' Court for Pawtucket and vicinity in 1871 and 
1872, and was appointed Judge of the Probate Court 
of Pawtucket for the years 1879-80-81. He was 
elected to the General Assembly as a member of the 
House of Representatives for the sessions of 1880-81, 
1884-85 and 1886-87. In 1884 he was appointed 
Town Solicitor of Pawtucket, and upon the organ- 
ization of the city government, in 1886, was elected 
City Solicitor and has continued to hold the office 
by annual election until the present time. In 1880 
he was appointed Assistant Judge Advocate General 
of the State with the rank of Captain. He is, by 
appointment of the Supreme Court, one of the 
standing Masters in Chancery for the county of 
Providence. He is a member of the Congregational 
Church, and for the last seventeen years has been 
Superintendent of the Sunday School. In 1889 he 
made a tour of Europe, Egypt and Palestine, and 
visited Europe again in 1891 and in 1894. In 1888 
he was elected one of the trustees of the Franklin 
Savings Bank and continues in the same relation to 
this institution. He was President of the Congre- 
gational Club of Rhode Island from October 1892 to 
October 1894, and in 1895 ^^^ chosen a Director 
of the Rhode Island Home Missionary Society. In 
187 1 he married Miss Clara Josephine Paine, and 
has one daughter, Florence May, and two sons, 
Harold Chester and Ralph Tillinghast Barnefield. 



BARRY, William Francis, M. D., of Woonsocket, 
was born in Woonsocket, November 11, 1872, son 
of Michael and Catherine (Ryan) Barry. His early 
education was acquired in the public schools, and 
after attending the Woonsocket high school for a 
year he entered the high school at Franklin, Mass., 
from which he graduated in 1887. He adopted the 
profession of medicine, and graduated with honors 



from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at 
Baltimore in 1893. Dr. Barry was appointed and 
served for one year as Resident Physician at St. 
Joseph's Hospital, Providence, and in 1896 was 




WILLIAM F. BARRY, 



elected Consulting Physician to that institution. He 
is a fellow of the Rhode Island Medical Society, hav- 
ing been elected in 1895, and is a member and local 
examiner of the society of Knights of Columbus. 



BAXTER, John James, physician and surgeon, 
Woonsocket, son of Charles and Elizabeth (Mc- 
Queeney) Baxter, and grandson of Michael Baxter, 
was born in Providence, June 23, i860. After 
graduating from Lasalle Academy, Providence, in 
1876, he entered the mercantile office of B. B. & R. 
Knight, as a clerk, and remained in their employ 
until 188 1. Having accumulated sufficient money 
for a professional education, he began to read med- 
icine in i88r, at Providence, under WiUiam F. 
Hutchinson, M. D. He attended two winter and 
one summer courses of lectures at the University 
Medical College, New York City, and was graduated 
in March 1885, being president of the class and 
among the honor men in the final examinations. 
He has practised medicine at Woonsocket since 
April 1885. Dr. Baxter is a member of the Rhode 
Island Medical Society, the Rhode Island Medico- 



88 



MEN OF PROGRESS, 



Legal Society, the Woonsocket Medical Society, the 
Ancient Order of Foresters and the Catholic 
Knights of America. He has been secretary of the 
board of pension examining surgeons at Woon- 
socket since 189 1, a member of the staff of the 




JOHN J. BAXTER. 

Woonsocket Hospital since 1888, Medical Exami- 
ner of District 6, State of Rhode Island, and is 
medical examiner and physician to the secret socie- 
ties of which he is a member. He is a tenor vocal- 
ist of considerable reputation. He married, June 
2, 1886, Miss Jennie C. Furlong, of Providence, 
R. I. ; they have three children : Thomas Furlong, 
Rosa and John C. Baxter. 



BEANE, George Frederick Aldrich, general 
teaming, coal, and wood business, was born in North 
Scituate, R. I., October 24, 1849, the son of Constant 
Cook and Olive L. (Aldrich) Beane. His ances- 
tor, William Pitt Beane of Meredith, N. H., mar- 
ried Annie Cook of Scituate, daughter of Constant 
Cook, a descendant of the brother of Governor 
Cook, one of the first governors of Rhode Island. 
His father Constant C. Beane was born in Pomfret, 
Conn., and married Olive L. Aldrich, born in 
Scituate, a descendant of David Aldrich of South 
Kingston on the father's side and on the mother's 
of Thomas Angell, one of the five settlers who came 



with Roger Williams to Providence. She is a 
cousin of Hon. James B. Angell, ex-Minister to 
China. He received his early education in the 
district schools, at Lapham Institute, North Scituate, 
and at Schofield's Commercial College, Providence. 
He entered the ofifice of the Franklin Manufactur- 
ing Company, Merino village, October 16, 1865, as 
clerk, and Horace Beane's market. Fall River, in 
the same capacity in 1868. He returned to the 
Franklin Company in 1871, and in 1872 entered 
the employ of Rice & Hayward, bakers, Providence. 
In 1873 he engaged in the real estate business in 
Providence under the firm name of Peirce & Beane. 
In 1874 he started in the egg business, and is now 
engaged in the general teaming and coal and wood 
business in his present location in Olneyville. He 
has been a highway surveyor, member and Presi- 
dent of the Town Council, State Senator from 1890 
and 1892, Town Moderator in 1894 and 1896, and 
was Chairman of the State Highway Commission, 
appointed by Governor H. W. Ladd, in 1892. He 
was Chairman of the Republican Committee of the 




GEO. F. A. BEANE. 

town of Johnston from 1887 to 1890, and a member 
of the State Central Committee in 1891-92. He is 
ex-foreman of the Rough and Ready Fire Company 
of Johnston. He has been President of the Olney- 
ville Business Men's Association, and of the Fruit 
Hill Detecting Society. He is a member of Nestell 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



89 



Lodge A. F. & A. M. of Providence, and of Scituate 
Royal Arch Chapter, P. G. of Manufacturers' Lodge 
and P. C. P. of Woonasquatucket Encampment, and 
is a Past Grand High Priest of the Grand Encamp- 
ment of Rhode Island, L O. O. F. He married, 
June 14, 1870, Miss Abby Louisa Angell, who died 
in August, 1887; they had children: Louisa A, 
Josephine A., William Henry and George Fred- 
erick. He married, January i, 1893, Mrs. Ida 
Louise McAllister, n/c Marshall, of Bear River, Nova 
Scotia. 

BRUCE, Henry Jewett, M. D., Pascoag, was 
born in Webster, Worcester county, Mass., Novem- 




HENRY J. BRUCE. 

ber 8, 1849, son of Winsor and Huldah (AVebster) 
Bruce. His father was a native of Dover, Vt., and 
his grandfather was Abijah Bruce, formerly of Mil- 
ford, Mass. His mother was born in \\'oodstock. 
Conn., of the same stock as Noah Webster of 
dictionary and spelling-book fame. Henry's early 
education was obtained in the public schools of his 
native town. Having gone through the college pre- 
paratory course, he afterward took up the scientific 
course, and graduated in 1869. Following gradua- 
tion he engaged in surveying and civil engineering, 
having an office with the Town Clerk of Webster, 
and devoted his spare time to reading law. In the 
spring of 1871 he began the study of medicine, 



under the tutorship of Dr. E. G. Burnett, of Webster, 
and attended the following winter term of the College 
of Physicians and Surgeons (the Medical Depart- 
ment of Columbia College) , New York, after which 
he took the two following courses at the Long Island 
Hospital College, from which he received his diploma 
in June 1874. In company with an old schoolmate, 
Albert Howard, he opened a drug store in Webster, 
and also engaged in practice in his native town ; 
but after a time, as the business did not pay very 
well, he sold out and went to Olneyville, R. I., where 
he spent the winter, and in the spring of 1877 took 
up his residence in Pascoag, about twenty miles 
from Providence. He had been a resident of Pas- 
coag about a year when his father, mother and 
sister, who were all in poor health, came to live with 
him. They took a house and lived very comfortably, 
considering their condition of health, but in Decem- 
ber 1879, his mother, who had been an invalid for 
more than twenty years, died ; in June following, 
his father, who had been suffering from a spinal 
disease for about six years passed away, and a week 
later occurred the death of his sister. During all 
the family sickness Dr. Bruce had personally taken 
upon him most of the care of the sufferers, besides 
attending to quite a busy practice, and when it was all 
over he succumbed to the long continued strain and 
was compelled to lay aside the most of his practice 
for over two years on account of nervous prostration. 
Dr. Bruce has always been a Republican but has 
never held political office. He has been many times 
importuned to serve as a candidate for election to 
the Town Council but has always refused. In 1878 
he was appointed Superintendent of Schools, and 
filled the position two years, when he resigned. He 
has devoted much time and earnest work to influ- 
encing the public mind in favor of good roads, and 
is happily beginning to see some of the results of 
his labors in this direction. He is a member of 
the Masonic order of Knights Templar. In 1881 
Dr. Bruce married Mrs. Lydia Bailey, a widow with 
three children mostly grown up, the youngest about 
fourteen years, with whom he is still living ; he has 
no children. 

BURBANK, Robert Willakd, attorney-at-lavv. 
Providence, was born at Koloa, island of Kauai, 
Hawaiian Islands, September 14, 1856, son of 
Samuel and Mary A. (Morse) Burbank. He is 
descended from New England ancestry, the family 
having been residents of the state of Maine. He 
prepared for college at the Friends' Boarding 



90 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



School in Providence and entered Brown University, 
from which he graduated in the class of 1878. 
After graduation he commenced the study of the 
law in the office of Mowry & Comstock, and was 
admitted to the bar November 29, 1880. He 




ROBERT W, BURBANK. 

established a successful practice in Providence and 
in 1888 was appointed Assistant Attorney General, 
holding the office for one year. In 1891 he was 
unanimously nominated for Attorney General of the 
State by the Republican Convention and held that 
office for three successive terms. Since that time 
he has continued in general law practice in Provi- 
dence. In the municipal elect' on of the city of 
Providence in November 1895, he was elected 
Alderman from the Second Ward on the Good Gov- 
erment Ticket, and now represents that Ward in 
the Board of Aldermen, In politics he is a Repub- 
lican. He married, April 12, 1883, Miss Martha 
Anna Taylor ; they have three children ; Robert 
Taylor, Philip and Elizabeth Burbank. 



CADY, George Waterman, architect. Provi- 
dence, was born in Providence, August 27, 1825, 
son of Rev. Jonathan and EHza (Pettey) Cady. 
He comes of old New England stock, his ancestor, 
Nicholas Cady, having settled in Watertown, Mass., 



Killingly, Conn., where they were prominent citi- 
zens of the town for many generations. He re- 
ceived his early education in the public schools and 
in the Lowell high school. After his school educa- 
tion he was apprenticed to the carpenter's trade, 
and after some time in this work developed his 
studies in architecture, for which he had a natural 
taste and ability. In i860 he opened an architect's 
office in Providence, and has since, under the firm 
name of Geo. W. Cady & Co., done a large business 
in designing and superintending the erection of 
many important buildings. He has always taken 
an active interest in military affairs and in the fire 
department. He has been a member of the First 
Light Infantry Regiment from 1854 to 1895, and 
was an inspector on the staffs of Cols. Dennis, 
Goddard and Thornton. During the war he was 
commissioned Major of the Twenty-second Regi- 
ment Rhode Island Volunteers, which was not 
called into the service. In the Fire Department he 
was captain of a company from 1854 to 1870, and 
second President of the Providence Veteran Fire- 
man's Association. He is a member of the Rhode 




GEO, W. CADY. 



Island Chapter of the American Institute of Archi- 
tects, of the First Light Infantry Veteran Associa- 
tion, and of the Providence Art Club. In politics 
he is a Republican, but of late has not taken an 



in 1645. 'I he family soon afterward removed to active part in public affairs. He married, July 20, 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



91 



1846, Miss Mary Anna Burr of Providence; they 
have four children : Frederic Waterman, Ella 
Porter, Annie Burr and George Milton Cady, the 
latter associated with his father's firm. 



CADY, Philo Victor, Sheriff of the County of 
Bristol, was born in Barrington, R. I., May 23, 1856, 




PHILO V. CADY. 

son of James Jerome and Experience (Smith) Cady. 
His great-great grandfather, Isaac Cady, was one of 
the first settlers of Alstead, N. H., being one of the 
first three men that wintered in that town. He 
married Mary Heldrick, who was the first woman 
that spent a winter in that town, and their son 
Jacob was the first child born there. The old 
homestead is now occupied by Levi Cady, and his 
father, James Jerome Cady, was born there. On 
his mother's side he is the grandson of the Rev. 
Eleazar and Experience (Barney) Smith of Swan- 
zey, Mass. He received his early education in the 
public schools of Warren, R. I., and commenced to 
learn the shipbuilding trade with his father, a ship- 
builder, who constructed the last two ships built in 
Warren. After working two years at the trade he 
was knocked from the side of a ship and injured. 
He then learned the trade of manufacturing cigars. 
He went West in 1877, crossing the plains on foot 
from Fort Pierre, Dakota, to the Black Hills. After 



four months' mining and prospecting in the Hills 
he left for Cheyenne, Wyoming. In Cheyenne he 
served as a member of a posse under Sheriff T. Jeff. 
Carr to run down Reddy, the notorious outlaw and 
stage robber, and the leader of a gang of outlaws 
and miirderers. He returned to Rhode Island in 
1880 and established the cigar-manufacturing busi- 
ness in Bristol, where he has since remained. He 
was Corresponding and Recording Secretary of the 
Cigar-Makers Union in Denver, Col., in 1879-80. 
He was elected Sheriff of the County of Bristol in 
1890-91-92, held over in 1893, and has been con- 
tinuously re-elected since. He is a member of 
Burnside Lodge Knights of Pythias of Bristol. In 
politics he is a Republican. He married, April i, 
1875, Miss Elizabeth McCormick, who died April 
18, 1889; they had children: Annie Newell, Grace 
Mapleton, Harrison Victor and Lizzie Cady. He 
married, second, November 15, 1893, Miss Florence 
May Maxwell ; they have one son, George Maxwell 
Cady. 

CAP WELL, Remington Pendleton, physician 
and surgeon, Slatersville, was born in Phenix, R. I., 




remington p. capwell. 

January 5, 1872, the son of Edwin C. and Susan 
(Remington) Capwell. He is a nephew of Dr. Wm. 
C. Monroe of Woonsocket, with whom he studied 
during his school term in that city. He received 



92 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



his early education in the primary and grammar 
schools of Phenix and the high school of Woon- 
socket, graduating from the latter in the class of 
1 89 1. He entered the Belle vue Hospital Medical 
College of New York, and graduated in 1894. Dr. 
Capwell established himself in practice in Slatersville, 
R. I., April I, 1894, at the age of twenty-two, and 
has since remained there. He is not married. 



CARPENTER, Alva, iron manufacturer. Provi- 
dence, was born in Seekonk, Mass., March 2, 
1829, son of Jonathan and Leafy (Bourne) Carpen- 




ALVA CARPENTER. 

ter, and a descendant of Albert Carpenter, who 
came over from England with the early Puritans. 
He attended the common schools until fifteen 
years old, and then spent two years in a cotton 
mill. In 1846, at the age of seventeen, he was 
apprenticed to learn the moulder's trade with 
Thomas J. Hill (now the Providence Machine 
Company), and at the expiration of his term of 
service worked three years in a foundry at Matea- 
wan, N. Y., returning to Rhode Island in 1850 and 
working two years in a foundry at Newport. In 
1852 he entered the employ of the Corliss Steam 
Engine Company, remaining with them until 1865 
and in September of that year started in the foundry 
business in company with Amos D. Smith, under 



the firm name of Smith & Carpenter, on Dyer 
street. The partnership continued until 1870, when 
they disposed of the business there and removed 
to Aborn street, Mr. Carpenter buying out Mr. 
Smith's interest soon after and continuing the busi- 
ness alone. In 1880 he took in Henry C. Bowen 
as partner, and they continued together until 1889, 
when the partnership was dissolved, Mr. Carpenter 
with his two sons building a new foundry in their 
present location on West Exchange street. On 
November 11, 1892, this foundry was entirely de- 
stroyed by fire. The firm immediately rebuilt on 
the same site, and on a larger scale, and they have 
at present one of the best equipped foundries in 
the state, employing one hundred hands. Mr. 
Carpenter has never taken a very active part in 
politics, but has always been a staunch and consist- 
ent Democrat of the old school. In 1892 he was 
elected and served as a Representative in the 
Rhode Island State Legislature for one year. He 
joined Roger Williams Lodge of Odd Fellows in 
1874, received the highest honors of the Lodge, and 
in 1886 became a charter member of Mount Pleas- 
ant Lodge No. 45, I. O. O. F., of which he is still 
an active member. He is also a member of the 
Pomham and West Side clubs. He was married 
in 1854 to Miss Mary E. Allen of Attleboro, Mass ; 
they have five children .- three sons, all married 
and having families, the eldest an episcopal clergy- 
man, rector of St. Mark's Church at Warren, R. I., 
and two daughters, residing with their parents in 
Providence. 

CHAMPLIN, Christopher Elihu, was born at the 
homestead of his grandfather Rose on the easterly 
side of Block Island, September 24, i860, the son 
of John P. and Lydia M. (Rose) Champlin. He 
comes from old Rhode Island families on both 
sides, his great-grandfather, Nathaniel E., being the 
first Champlain to settle on Block Island, and the 
Rose family having been long identified with its 
history. He received his education in the public 
schools of New Shoreham and at East Greenwich 
Academy, where he was prepared for Brown Uni- 
versity in which he studied. He adopted the law 
as his profession and recei\ed his early training in 
the office of Edward H. Hazard and Col. C. H. 
Parkhurst of Providence. He studied in the Boston 
University of Law, from which he graduated in the 
class of 1884, and was admitted to the Suffolk 
County bar of Massachusetts in July 1884, and 
to the Rhode Island bar the following year. Im- 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



93 



mediately upon admission to the Rhode Island bar 
he opened a law office in Providence, where he has 
acquired a valuable practice. Although practicing 
in Providence he has retained his residence in New 
Shoreham, and has been its Town Solicitor for the 




CHRISTOPHER E, CHAMPLIN. 

past ten consecutive years. In 1887 he entered in- 
to politics and was elected a Representative to the 
General Assembly from New Shoreham, and was 
unanimously re-elected the following year, serving 
upon the Judiciary Committee for both terms. In 
1888 he was Secretary of the Democratic State Cen- 
tral Committee of Rhode Island. In 1890 he was 
elected a Senator to the General Assembly from New 
Shoreham, and has been continuously re-elected each 
year since, serving upon the Judiciary and Corpora- 
tion committees. From the beginning of his legisla- 
tive career he interested himself strongly in securing 
an appropriation for the construction of a harbor 
of refuge in the Great Salt Pond of Block Island, 
and it was due chiefly to his exertions that the work 
was accomplished. At the formal dedication of the 
new harbor, September 21, 1895, Senator Champlin 
made the address of welcome to the Executive, Judi- 
cial and Representative bodies of the State. He 
is a member of the First Baptist Church of New 
Shoreham, and of Atlantic Lodge of Masons. He 
was married, October 14, 1891, to Miss Joannah 
Hayes j they have no children. 



CLARK, Henry Clinton, President of the Rhode 
Island Coal Company, Providence, was born in 
Providence, November 28, 1822, son of Sterry and 
Julia Ann (Morse) Clark. He came of good old New 
England stock, his grandfathers on both sides hav- 
ing been Revolutionary soldiers. His first American 
ancestors settled in Southbridge, Mass., where his 
father, Sterry Clark, was born. He received his 
early education in the public schools of Providence, 
commenced active business life in 184 1 as a clerk 
in the employ of Jackson & Clark, and held that 
position until his admission into the firm, whose name 
was changed to Jackson, Clark & Company. The firm 
name underwent successive changes to S. Clark & Co., 
Clark & Coggeshall, Clark & Webb, H. C. Clark & 
Co., and later to the Providence Coal Company, as 
the head of which Mr. Clark has conducted one of 
the largest coal concerns in New England. He has 
always taken an active interest in public affairs, and 
has been influential with voice and pen both in and 
out of office. He was a member of the State Legis- 
lature, and of the Common Council of Providence 
from 1882 to 1885, and was a member of the Board 




HENRY C. CLARK. 

of Aldermen in 1876. In 1892 and 1895 he was an 
independent candidate for Mayor. In politics he 
was originally a Whig, later a Freesoiler, and then a 
Republican. He is not a member of any society or 
club, preferring to devote his time to business and 



94 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



his family. On February 27, 1895, Mr. Clark pre- 
sented to his native city a bronze statue of Ebenezer 
Knight Dexter, a philanthropist who gave his large 
property for the benefit of the homeless and the 
public. He was married, January 21, 1844, to Miss 
Martha E. Field, who died December 8, 1888 ; they 
had one child, a son : Harry C. Clark. He married, 
second, Miss Mary Caroline Phillips. 



lican. He married, January 8, 1875, Miss Lizzie M. 
Manter ; they have had two children : Daniel A. and 
Mary M. Clarke; the latter died in January 1888. 



CLARKE, Charles Kendall, physician and sur- 
geon, Fiskeville, was born in North Scituate, R. I., 




CHAS. K. CLARKE, 

January 9, 185 i, the son of Daniel A. and Mary E. 
(Harrington) Clarke. He received his early edu- 
cation at the public schools and at Lapham Institute. 
He adopted medicine as a profession, and studied at 
the Bellevue Hospital in New York, from which he 
graduated March i, 1874, with the degree of M. D. 
He established himself as a physician at Fiskeville, in 
the town of Scituate, R. L, in 1875, where he has since 
remained in the enjoyment of a large practice. In 
addition to his professional work Dr. Clarke has been 
Superintendent of Public Schools and Assessor of 
Taxes in the town of Scituate. He is a member of 
the Rhode Island Medical Society and of the Royal 
Society of Good Fellows. In politics he is a Repub- 



COLT, Samuel Pomeroy, President of the In- 
dustrial Trust Company, Providence, was born at 
Paterson, New Jersey, January 10, 1852, the son of 
Christopher and Theodora (DeWolf) Colt. On his 
father's side he is descended from the Colts of Hart- 
ford, Conn., his grandfather being Christopher Colt, 
and his uncle Samuel Colt (for whom he is named) 
was the inventor of the Colt's Revolver, and founder 
of the Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Com- 
pany, Hartford, Conn. His grandfather's brother 
was Peter Colt of New York, and his son was Ros- 
well Colt of Paterson, New Jersey. On his mother's 
side he is of the DeWolfs of Rhode Island. His 
grandfather was General George DeWolf, who, in 
18 10, built the colonial mansion at Bristol, R. I., 
the present summer residence of the subject of this 
sketch. The DeWolfs were extensively engaged in 
East and West India trade in the early part of the 
century, and in privateering, in which they amassed 
large fortunes for those days. James DeWolf, his 
great-uncle, was United States Senator from Rhode 
Island in 182 1, and drove from Bristol to Washing- 
ton with his own four-in-hand; the coach used is 
still preserved. Henry Goodwin of Newport, R. I., 
Attorney-General of Rhode Island, 1 787-1 789, was 
also a great-uncle. His great-grandfather was 
Gov. William Bradford, who was of the sixth gen- 
eration from Gov. William Bradford of Plymouth 
Colony, who crossed in the Mayflower. He re- 
ceived his early education from five to ten at New 
Hartford, Conn., ten to fourteen at Hartford, Conn., 
and afterward at Bristol, R. I., and Anthon's Gram- 
mar School, New York. At eighteen he entered 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 
graduated at twenty-one in 1873. He passed a 
year travelling in Europe, 1873-74. On his return 
he entered the Columbia Law School, New York, 
autumn of 1874, graduating in the spring of 1876, 
and was admitted to the New York bar May 1876. 
He was admitted to the Rhode Island bar January 
I, 1877. He was Aide-de-Camp on the staff of 
Gov. Henry Lippitt, with rank of Colonel in 1875- 
76-77. He was elected a member of the General 
Assembly from Bristol 1876-77-78-79, was Assistant 
Attorney-General of Rhode Island 1879-80-81, 
he was elected as the Republican candidate for 
Attorney-General of Rhode Island 18S2-S3-84-S5. 





^^f^^^z:^ 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



95 



After his term of office he again visited Europe. He 
founded the Industrial Trust Company, Providence, 
1887, and reorganized the National Rubber Com- 
pany of Bristol, 1888. He has been President of 
the Industrial Trust Company and National India 
Rubber Company since their organization. He is 
President of the National Eagle Bank and Vice- 
President of the First National Bank, of Bristol, 
also a Director, member of Executive Committee 
and Legal Adviser of the United States Rubber 
Company. He married, January 12, 1881, Miss 
Elizabeth M. Bullock, daughter of J. Russell Bul- 
lock, Ex-Judge of Supreme and United States 
District Courts of Rhode Island; they have two 
children : Russell Griswold, born October i, 1882, 
and Roswell Christopher, born October 10, 1889. 



CONGDON, William Washington, retired busi- 
ness man, Wickford, was born in North Kingston, 
R. I., February 22, 1831, the son of Stanton W. and 
Izette (Hammond) Congdon. He comes of old 




WM. W, CONGDON. 

Rhode Island ancestry, his grandfather being Daniel 
Congdon, and his grandmother Hannah Stanton. 
He received his early education in the common 
schools, and engaged in active business life when 
quite young. For thirty-five years he conducted a 



livery business and stage route, and for fifteen years 
was conductor on the Newport & Wickford Railroad, 
retiring from active business in 1892. He has been 
a Deputy Sheriff of Washington county, member of 
the Town Council of Wickford in 1891-92, Repre- 
sentative in the General Assemby in 1894, and a 
Director in the National Bank and Savings Bank of 
Wickford. In politics he is a Republican. He 
married, in November 1856, Miss Frances A. 
Gardner, daughter of George and Mary A. Gard- 
ner ; they had one daughter, who died in infancy. 



CONLEY, John Edward, attorney-at-law, Prov- 
idence, was born in Warren, R. I., September 7, 




JOHN E, CONLEY. 

1868, son of Michael F. and Catherine (Dolan) 
Conley. His father died when he was about four- 
teen years of age, and he has been in a great 
measure dependent on his own exertions for success 
in life. He received his early education in the 
public schools of Warren and the Perry Business 
College of Providence. He attended Brown Uni- 
versity for two years, after which he was bookkeeper 
and clerk until November 1885, when he entered the 
office of the Hon. George J. West, Providence, for 
the study of law. He was admitted to the Rhode 
Island bar July 29, 1889, and has since been as- 



96 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



sociated with Mr. West in practice. He has taken 
an active part in politics and pubHc Hfe. He served 
as a clerk of the Committee on Corporations in the 
Rhode Island General Assembly in 1889-1890, and 
was elected Clerk of the House of Representatives 
for the political years 1893-94. He has been Sec- 
retary of the Democratic State Central Committee 
for the past two years and still holds the ofifice. He 
has also been Chairman and Secretary of the Demo- 
cratic Town Committee of Warren for the past five 
years, and has held other offices of importance and 
responsibility in his party. He is a good speaker, 
and occasionally writes for the current magazines 
and newspapers. He served in the Rhode Island 
militia for over two years as First Lieutenant of 
Company A, Second Regiment, and was elected 
Captain in May 1892, resigning in February 1893. 
He is President of the Catholic Club of Warren, is 
a member of Burnside Lodge Knights of Pythias, 
Bristol, R. I., of Massasoit Council Royal Arcanum, 
Warren, and a member of the Democratic Club of 
the city of New York. He married, September 22, 
1891, Miss Esther J. Murphy; they have two 
children : Gertrude and Esther Conley. 



Burnside Lodge Knights of Pythias of Bristol, of 
Massasoit Council Royal Arcanum and the Catholic 
Club of Warren. He is much interested in athlet- 
ics and at present holds the county championship 




CONLEY, Martin Joseph, Postmaster at War- 
ren, was born in Warren, R. I., December 4, 1869, 
the son of Michael F. and Catherine (Dolan) Con- 
ley. His father was born in County Roscommon, 
Ireland, came to this country when a small boy and 
was engaged in the grocery business in Warren 
from 1871 until October 14, 1880, the date of his 
death ; he was well-known and highly respected, 
and a citizen who took a prominent part in town 
affairs. His mother was born in Longford, Leinster 
province, Ireland, and came to this country when a 
child. He received his education in the public 
schools of Warren and in Bryant & Stratton's Com- 
mercial College of Providence. His business ser- 
vice has been that of a bookkeeper and collector, 
and he was engaged in the boot and shoe and 
drygoods business for three years. He was ap- 
pointed Postmaster in Warren, February 10, 1895, 
and is one of the youngest, if not the youngest, 
ever appointed to that position. He served for 
seven years in the state militia and retired with the 
rank of Sergeant-Major. He has held ofifice in 
Massasoit Council, Royal Arcanum. In politics he 
is a Democrat, and was a member of the town com- 
mittee of that party for some years previous to his 
appointment as Postmaster. He is a member of 



MARTIN J. CONLEY. 

for bowling. Mr. Conley is a brother of Hon. John 
E. Conley, ex-Clerk of the Rhode Island House of 
Representatives and at present the Secretary of the 
Democratic State Central Committee of Rhode Is- 
land. He is unmarried. 



COOPER, Robert Wright, manufacturer, is a 
native of Manchester, England, born September 2, 
1844, son of Francis A. and Maria (Wright) Cooper. 
His paternal grandfather, Francis Cooper, came 
from Ripon, Yorkshire, England, where his fore- 
fathers lived for many generations. On the maternal 
side, his grandfather, Robert Wright, was a Man- 
chester merchant, originally from Coventry, War- 
wickshire, England. His early education was ac- 
quired in private schools, principally .\lms Hill 
Academy at Cheetham Hill, Manchester. .\t the 
age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a large dry- 
goods firm in Manchester, where from the first his 
ambition to "get on" was manifested by diligence, 
punctuality — never being known to be late — and 
by paying very close attention to business. When 
seventeen years of age he commenced taking short 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



97 



trips as a commercial traveller, and at nineteen he 
made his first journey to New York. After several 
years of hard struggle he succeeded in working up 
a valuable connection with leading firms in the 
largest American cities, in English full-fashioned 
hosiery, representing manufacturers of Nottingham, 
England, with whom he was associated, first as 
traveUing salesman, later as partner, and finally 
establishing his own firm of R. W. Cooper & Co. 
He continued his American trips for twenty-one 
years, crossing the ocean about one hundred times, 
and travelling an average of nearly twenty-five thoii- 
sand miles a year, without ever meeting with an 




ROBERT W, COOPER. 

accident. About the year 1880 he began to lose 
his trade, the German manufacturers coming into 
the market with the same class of goods, but made 
by their cheap " pauper " labor, paying wages about 
one- third what he was paying in England, thus en- 
abling them to undersell him in the American mar- 
ket. After several years of ineffectual struggling to 
meet the conditions arising from this German com- 
petition, he found that to save himself from ruin he 
must choose one of two things — move to Germany 
to secure the advantage of cheap labor, or move to 
America and get the benefit of the protective tariff. 
He decided upon the latter. With the aid of New 
York friends he removed his machinery and skilled 
work-people to this country, arriving with them 



December 24, 1884, in the village of Thornton, R. I., 
where a mill and cottages had been especially built 
for them by Charles Fletcher of Providence. They 
succeeded in making exactly similar goods in their 
new home to those they had made for so many 
years in England, hence the appropriate change in 
the firm name to British Hosiery Company, which 
was incorporated under Rhode Island state laws in 
1885. The industry thus brought here was entirely 
new in this country, and in their specialty — full- 
fashioned cashmere hosiery — they are still (1895) 
alone in it. The business has grown to four times the 
size of eleven years ago. When they came to Thorn- 
ton they found about two hundred inhabitants ; now 
the village contains about fifteen hundred prosperous 
and contented people, some of the most thrifty living 
in houses of their own. They have two churches, 
large public school, city water, macadamized roads 
and electric cars from Olneyville. Nearly all Mr. 
Cooper's people, with himself, have become Ameri- 
can citizens. He has never held public office in 
this country, outside of the different societies in his 
village, as he is too busy a man in his private affairs, 
which after all may be termed public in a measure, 
inasmuch as upon their successful conduct depend 
the welfare and prosperity of a large and growing 
community. In England he was prominent in 
church and temperance work, holding office as 
Deacon in the church and as Vice-President in 
temperance societies in Nottingham. In politics 
he is not active, but is an adherent of the Repub- 
lican party. His elder son, Oliver W., in his twenty- 
second year, is learning the business with him ; his 
other son Augustus, is at school in Europe. 



COVELL, William Henry, of Providence, mer- 
chant, was born in Killingly, Conn., January 27, 
1836, son of Willis and Lydia (Perrin) Covell. His 
grandfather, Ebenezer Covell, was in the Revolu- 
tionary war, serving as body guard to General 
Washington ; and his father, WiUis Covell, was one 
of those who answered to the call for men in 181 2. 
His early education was obtained in the public 
schools and academy of Thompson, Conn., and East 
Greenwich, R. I. In 1858 he commenced farming 
in Thompson, Conn., and continued until i86i, when 
he took up the meat, poultry and produce business, 
and carried it on until July 1866. He then removed 
to Olneyville, R. I., and entered the grocery trade, 
in connection with R. S. Rouse, under the firm 
name of R. S. Rouse & Company, continuing to 



98 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



May 187 1. In October 1871 he opened a new 
store in Olneyville under the name of Wm. H. 
Covell & Company, continuing until obliged to close 
out on account of ill health. In 1878 he opened a 
store at No. 589 Atwell's Avenue, formerly the Cove 
Store, owned by the Richmond Manufacturing Com- 
pany, in connection with S. N. Davis, under the 
old name of Wm. H. Covell & Company, where the 
firm now carries on the hay, grain, wood, coal, grocery 
and market business. Mr. Covell was a member of 
the Town Council of North Providence in 1873-74, 
and for several years was trustee of North Providence 
School District No. 8, now the Tenth Ward of the 




W. H, COVELL. 

city of Providence. He served on the School Com- 
mittee of Providence in 1878-80, was elected to the 
Common Council in 1883 and again in the succes- 
sive six years 1888-93 i ^^^ ^ member of the Com- 
mittee on Highways six years and chairman four 
years ; and served on the Railroad Committee three 
years, Finance three years, Lights one year and on 
Committee City Engineer's Department three years. 
He was appointed in 1888 on a committee to pur- 
chase land for sewerage purposes, and is still acting 
in that capacity. He has also served upon com- 
mittees to confer with owners of the shore between 
Hill's Wharf and Sassafras Point, relative to improved 
navigation ; to examine and report relative to taxa- 
tion upon special franchises ; to confer with owners 



of real estate relative to the widening of Elmwood 
Avenue, and other important committees. He was 
elected a Representative to the General Assembly in 
1886-87, 1891-92 and 1894-95, and in 1892 was 
appointed on a committee to examine into the con- 
dition of the roads and public highways of the State. 
Mr. Covell is a Republican in politics, and belongs 
to the Young Men's Republican Club of Providence, 
and the Mount Pleasant Republican Club of the 
Tenth Ward. He is also a member of the Butchers 
and Marketmen's Association of Providence, and 
President of the Olneyville Business Men's Associa- 
tion. He was married June 2, 1858, to Miss Mary 
Jane Davis ; they have four children : Agnes M., 
Alice L., Lucy F. and William H. Covell, Jr. 



COYLE, Rev. James, pastor of Saint Joseph's 
Church, Newport, was born in Abbeylara, County 
Longford, Ireland, September 9, 1850, son of Daniel 
and Mary (Reilly) Coyle. His ancestry on both 
sides is distinctively old Irish. He acquired his 
rudimentary education in the Irish national schools, 
and came to America with his parents early in 1863. 
After spending two years in Saint Joseph's College, 
Bardstown, Ky., going there in September 1869, he 
entered in September 187 1 Laselle Academy, Prov- 
idence, where he taught Latin, at the same time con- 
tinuing his own studies under Rev. H. F. Kinnerney. 
In September 1872, with the purpose mainly of ac- 
quiring a knowledge of the French language, he went 
to Saint Laurent College, near Montreal, where he 
graduated in June 1874. While at Saint Laurent he 
was president of the leading literary society, editor of 
the weekly college journal, the Spectator, and class 
valedictorian. He entered the Grand Seminary, 
Montreal, in September following, and was there 
raised to the priesthood, December 22, 1877. 
Bishop O'Reilly of the Springfield diocese needing 
priests, he was sent temporarily to Springfield, and 
reported for duty at North Adams, January 19, 
1878; and on the return of the pastor of North 
Adams, then in Europe, was appointed assistant at 
Millbury, Mass., remaining there until called by 
Bishop Hendricken to the Cathedral in Providence, 
February 11, 1880, where he labored until ap- 
pointed pastor of the new parish in Newport, Janu- 
ary 14, 1885. Father Coyle's first services in New- 
port were held in the old Lhiitarian Church on Mill 
street, January 25, 1885. The new parish had not 
then an inch of ground, nor a resting place of any 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



99 



description. The pastor bought the property of the 
Zion Church corporation, paying therefor 1 15,025, 
and celebrated the first mass therein on Sunday, 
March 8, 1885. He remodeled and beautified the 
church interior, and in January 1887 purchased the 




JAMES COYLE, 

adjoining property, known as the Young estate, at a 
cost of $28,500. In May 1887 he began the erec- 
tion of a rectory, which was tenanted the following 
October, the estimated cost being $9,000. A con- 
vent was finished and occupied by the Sisters of 
Saint Joseph in July 1889, and a private academy 
started the September following. Catholics and 
non-Catholics generously seconded Father Coyle's 
efforts, many rare and costly gifts testifying to their 
continued goodwill. On the 2d of August 189 1, 
one of the finest school buildings in New England 
was dedicated, by Rt. Rev. Bishop Harkins ; the 
donor, till then unknown, being George Babcock 
Hazard, a non- Catholic. In this substantial manner 
one of Newport's oldest citizens proved his friend- 
ship for Saint Joseph's pastor. Ten teachers and 
five hundred and fifty children now utilize Mr. 
Hazard's beneficence. In the eleven years of his 
pastorate Father Coyle has collected and disbursed 
upwards of $165,000, aside from the Hazard gift, 
and Saint Joseph's, one of the finest church proper- 
ties in the diocese, is now entirely free from debt, 
a splendid showing, all things considered. 



CROOKER, George Hazard, physician and 
surgeon, Providence, was born in Providence, Feb- 
ruary 25, 1865, son of Josiah Whipple and Eliza 
(Hazard) Crooker. He is descended from old 
New England stock on both sides, the Crooker 
family of Richmond, New Hampshire, and the 
Hazard family of Wakefield, R. I., both very well 
known and distinguished for generations. He re- 
ceived his preparatory education in Mowry & 
Goff's Classical School, Providence, from which he 
graduated in 1883. He then entered Brown 
University, from which he graduated in 1887 with 
the degree of A. B., receiving that of A. M. in 1890. 
He adopted medicine as a profession and entered 
the Harvard Medical School, from which he gradu- 
ated in 1893 with the degree of M. D. In 1890 
he went to Europe to complete his education and 
spent two years in studying in Heidelburg, Vienna, 
Berlin, Dresden and London. In the winter of 
1892-93 he took a course of hospital work in 
Boston. He began the practice of medicine in 
Providence in the spring of 1894. He holds the 
positions of Externe of the Rhode Island Hospital 




GEORGE H, CROOKER. 

and House Physician of the Providence Lying-in- 
Hospital. Dr. Crooker is a member of the Rhode 
Island Medical Society and the Providence Medical 
Association, also of the Providence Art Club and the 
Providence Athletic Association. He is unmarried. 



lOO 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



CRUMB, Alexander Green, of Westerly, gran- 
ite manufacturer, was born in Charlestown, R. I., 
November 2, 1830, son of Gardner and Hannah 
Hoxsie (Hazard) Crumb. His education was ob- 
tained in the common schools of his native town. 
He worked as a farm hand during his youth, after- 
ward learning the granite cutter's trade, embarking 
in the granite business for himself in 1857, and in 
which he has continued to the present time. With 
him are associated his three sons in the business, 
under the firm name of A. G. Crumb and Sons their 
quarry and works being located at or near Niantic, 
in the town of Westerly. Mr. Crumb has been vari- 



Erskine A., Edward S., William A., Susan E. M. 
and Eugenia A. The three sons, as has been stated, 
are established in business with their father. 




ALEXANDER G. CRUMB. 

ously honored by his fellow citizens by his election 
to public oiSce. He was a member of the Town 
Board of Assessors for eight years, and in 1888 was 
elected a member of the Town Council, which ofifice 
he has held continuously since, serving as president 
of the council in 1893-94. In April 1895 he was 
chosen to represent the town of Westerly in the 
General Assembly of the state, in which capacity 
therefore he at present serves. He is a member 
of the Business Men's Association of Westerly, but 
belongs to no other important social, business or 
fraternal organization. In politics he is a Repub- 
lican. He was married, January 15, 1857, to Miss 
Sarah Frances Hines ; they have five children : 



DAVIS, John William, retired merchant, and 
Governor of Rhode Island in 1887 and 1890, was 
born in Rehoboth, Mass., March 7, 1826, son of 
John and Nancy (Davis) Davis. He comes of 
old New England ancestry. On his paternal side 
he is a descendant in the seventh generation from 
James Davis, who came with a family from Marl- 
boro, Wiltshire, England, to Massachusetts Bay 
Colony, about 1630, was admitted a freeman in 
Newbury in 1634 and in 1640 was one of the 
twelve original settlers of Haverhill, of which town 
he was chosen to the first board of Selectmen and 
was the largest individual taxpayer for many years. 
The line of descent is James and James, Jr. (both from 
England), Elisha and Daniel (born in Haverhill), 
Daniel, Jr., and Daniel, 3d (of Swansea), and John 
and John W. of Rehoboth. On the maternal side 
he is a descendant in the fifth generation from John 
Davis, who came from London, England, to New- 
port, R. I., about 1678, where he built a house, 
which was occupied by the General Assembly as the 
place of its sessions and made practically the Prov- 
ince House from 1682 to 1691, when the first public 
Colony House was built. This ancestor's descend- 
ants of the third generation, having identified them- 
selves with the Revolutionary party were obliged, as 
were hundreds of others, to leave Newport, upon its 
occupation by the British in December, 1776, and 
came up to Rehoboth, Mass., and settled there. 
Mr. Davis received his early education in the pub- 
lic schools of Rehoboth and at a private school 
in Pawtucket. He was brought up, as all his pater- 
nal ancestors were, to the business of farming, 
until he was eighteen years of age, when he ap- 
prenticed himself to the trade of a mason in 
Providence, teaching public schools in the country 
during the winters. Having completed his ap- 
prenticeship of three seasons, he traveled as a 
journeyman, working at his trade in Rhode Island, 
Massachusetts, South Carolina and Louisiana from 
1847 until 1850, when he went into mercantile 
business in Providence, which he continued until 
1890, and which by industry and prudence through 
all the vicissitudes of forty years he successfully 
maintained. True to his ancestral instincts, and in 
line with his mercantile business (the grain and 
provision trade), he has always taken a deep interest 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



lOi 



in agriculture and carried on an extensive farming 
business in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts, 
still owning and being largely interested in farm 
lands and plantations in the Western states, in 
Manitoba and in the Island of San Domingo, to 




JOHN W. DAVIS. 

all of which he habitually gives much thought 
and attention. Having removed his residence from 
Providence to Pawtucket in 1877, he was there 
chosen to his first public office, that of Town 
Councilman, and President of the Board, in 1882, 
and again in 1885. In 1885 he was elected a State 
Senator, re-elected in 1886 and again in 1893. In 
October 1886 he was appointed by President 
Cleveland Appraiser of Foreign Merchandise for 
the Providence United States Customs District. 
In 1887 he was elected Governor of Rhode Island 
by the Democratic party, aided by a large independ- 
ent vote, and was for five consecutive years the 
candidate of his party for that office, receiving in 
four of the five, the last three successively, the ma- 
jority vote, though owing to the then law requiring 
a majority of all the votes cast, to elect by the 
people, he was but twice seated in office, viz. : in 
1887, by a majority of all the votes, and again in 
1890, by choice of the General Assembly. The 
most notable events of his gubernatorial service 
were an investigation and reform in prison discip- 
line and management ; the adoption of an amend- 



ment to the state constitution, extending the 
elective franchise to all citizens upon uniform 
qualifications, as a right, instead of a privilege as 
theretofore held to especial classes, and thus amica- 
bly concluding a long and bitter partisan controversy 
of more than fifty years of acrimonious debate with 
threatened insurrection ; the adoption of a ballot- 
reform law and the establishment of the Rhode 
Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts at 
Kingston (which was chartered upon his special 
recommendation) were also substantially outcomes 
■ of his administrations. At present Mr. Davis is 
employed in the care of various fiduciary interests 
for himself and others, and engaged in several busi- 
ness enterprises which serve to keep him in active 
life, and abreast with the state's progressive citizens. 
His residence is in the suburbs of Pawtucket, and his 
family, a wife and two daughters, are well known in 
social circles. 



DROWN, Benjamin, for many years prominent 
in the political and social life of Warren, was born 




BENJAMIN DROWN. 

in Warren, December 19, 1826, son of Benjamin 
and Eliza (Champlin) Drown. He is of old New 
England ancestry, his grandfather Jonathan Drown 
having served in the war of the Revolution. He 
was educated in the public and private schools of 



102 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Warren, and has been engaged in business as team- 
ster and contractor since 1855. -^^ ^^^ ^^"^ '-^^ 
office of Street Commissioner of Warren, was a 
member of the School Committee for several years, 
has been Assessor of Taxes continuously since 1872, 
and has served his town on various committees, 
important among which was the committee to re- 
build Kelly's bridge over Warren river. He was 
Senator from Warren in the General Assembly from 
1882 to 1887, and again from 1890 to the present 
time, in which body he is at present Chairman of 
the Senate committees on Finance and Fisheries. 
He is also a member of the Shell Fish Commission 
of Rhode Island, elected in 1895 for five years. He 
is President of the Union Club of Warren, and 
member of the Philanthropic Society and the 
George Hail Free Library. Mr. Drown is a life-long 
Republican, and active in politics and public life, 
having been on the Republican Town Committee of 
Warren, and for ten years a member of the Repub- 
lican State Central Committee. He was married in 
April 1850 to Miss Mary W. Bowen, deceased; in 
October 1884 he was married to Miss Mary J. 
Walker, also deceased; in January 1887 he married 
Miss Mary Merritt, who is now living. He has three 
children by his first marriage : William B. Drown ; 
Mary A., now the wife of Walter H. Rose ; and 
Carrie E., wife of Charles S. Davol. 



DUBOIS, Edward Church, Attorney General of 
Rhode Island, was born in London, England, during 
the temporary absence of his parents from the 
United States, January 12, 1848, the son of Edward 
Church and Emma (Davison) Dubois. His paternal 
grandfather, Edward Church of Kentucky, was Con- 
sul at L'Orient, France, and his grandmother was 
Marie Dubois of Paris. On his mother's side he is 
descended from the English families of Davison and 
Moore. In 1857 his father had his name and that of 
his family changed from Church to Dubois. He was 
a distinguished teacher and lecturer, and the author 
of several text- books : Church's " French Spoken," 
Dubois' " Method of Teaching French," a book called 
"Blunders," and the edition of " Le Petit Courier" 
published in Boston. The subject of the present 
sketch received his early education at Russell's Mili- 
tary Academy, New Haven, Conn., the Pawtucket, 
R. I., High School, and the Friends' Academy, 
New Bedford, Mass. After graduation he was em- 
ployed by Thomas Otis, apothecary of New Bedford, 
for a year, and then went on a short whaling voyage 



in Jonathan Bourne's barque Andrews. After his 
return he renewed his engagement with Mr. Otis, 
and then was engaged by Corlies, Piatt & Metcalf, 
wholesale druggists, and by WiUiam E. Clarke, apoth- 
ecary, of Providence. He determined to adopt the 
law as his profession, and went to Boston, where he 
studied in the office of Hon. Charles J. Noyes. He 
was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of 
Massachusetts in Boston, March 19, 1870, to the 
United States Circuit Court bar in Boston, May 15, 
1877, and to the bar of the Rhode Island Supreme 
Court December 15, 1877. After his admission to 
the bar he remained in the office of Mr. Noyes until 




EDWARD C. DUBOIS. 

187 1, when he went to Haverhill, Mass., to take 
charge of the latter's office there. In 1872 he 
formed a co-partnership with Mr. Noyes under the 
firm name of Noyes &: Dubois. In September 1872 
he was appointed Clerk of the Police Court in 
Haverhill, and resigned his position in November 
1877 to remove to Providence and practice law in 
Rhode Island. Mr. Dubois removed to East Provi- 
dence in 1878 and has since resided there. He was 
elected Town Solicitor and has held the office for 
most of the time since. He served as State Senator 
from East Providence from 1883 to 1885. He was 
elected Attorney General of Rhode Island in 1894 
and re-elected in 1895. In politics he is a Repub- 
lican. He married, February 24, 1872, Miss Jennie 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



103 



Roberts of West Gardiner, Maine, daughter of Henry 
and Mary J. (Potter) Roberts. They have had three 
children, girls : the first died shortly after birth ; the 
second was Blanche Emma Roberts, since deceased ; 
and Desiree Jennie Dubois, born April 5, 1877. 



EARLE, Charles Henry, physician and surgeon. 
East Greenwich, was born at the homestead of his 
family in Cranston, R. I., near Fiskeville, January 




CHAS. H. EARLE. 

15, 1861, the son of Charles WilHam and Cynthia 
Jones (Hawkes) Earle. He came of good old 
Rhode Island stock, and is a relative of the late 
well known Dr. Pliny Earle. He received his early 
education at a private school, at home and in the 
public schools of the village, and was graduated 
from the Friends' School in Providence, in 1883. 
He was engaged as a teacher in the public schools 
of Rhode Island for five years, during which time 
he held the position of Principal of the grammar 
school at Auburn for three years. He adopted 
medicine as a profession, and was graduated from 
Bellevue Medical College, N. Y., in 1889, and from 
Kings County Hospital, Flatbush, L. I., in 1890. 
After graduating from the hospital he established 
himself in East Greenwich, R. I., where he has 
built up an excellent practice. He has acted as 
examiner for various life insurance companies. 



having been appointed Medical Examiner for the 
East Greenwich District in 1892, as successor to 
the late Dr. J. H. Eldredge. He is a member of 
the Rhode Island Medical Society. In politics he 
is a Republican. He married, October 13, 1893, 
Miss Jennie M. Perry of Rehoboth, Mass ; they 
have no children. 



FARNSWORTH, John Prescott, Treasurer and 
Agent of the Providence Dyeing, Bleaching and 
Calendering Company, was born in Pawtucket, 
Mass. (now Rhode Island), February 18, i860, son 
of Claudius Buchanan and Marianna (Mclntire) 
Farnsworth. There have been seven generations of 
the Farnsworth family in New England, principally 
settled in northern Massachusetts. His great-grand- 
father fought at Bunker Hill, and was a cousin of 
Colonel Prescott, who commanded. His near an- 
cestors were mostly farmers, living in Groton, Mass. 
He received his early education at a private school 
in Pawtucket, until the age of thirteen, and in the 
next four years prepared for college at Rev. C. H. 




JOHN P. FARNSWORTH. 

Wheeler's school in Providence. He then pursued 
the regular course at Harvard University, from which 
he graduated in 1881 with the Degree of A. B. In 
July of that year he entered the bleachery of the 
Lonsdale Company as clerk, and remained there in 



I04 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



various capacities until January 1885, at which time 
he was serving as Assistant Superintendent, and 
resigned to superintend the rebuilding of the Great 
Falls Company's bleachery at Great Falls, N. H. 
He severed this connection in July 1885 to accept 
the position of Agent of the Providence Dyeing, 
Bleaching and Calendering Company, of which 
corporation he became Treasurer in 1890. Since 
becoming the executive head of this large manufac- 
turing establishment he has rebuilt the works of the 
company, adding six new buildings to the plant, 
increasing its output over four hundred per cent. 
Mr. Farnsworth is a member of the A. E. Club of 
Providence, the Providence Athletic Association, 
the Churchman's Club of Rhode Island and the 
Arkwright Club of New York, and has been Secre- 
tary of the Harvard Club of Rhode Island from 1 889 
to the present time. In politics he is a Republican, 
and was a member of the Republican City Com- 
mittee in 1890-92. He was married, November 25, 
1885, to Miss Margaret Cochran Barbour, by whom 
he has three children : John Prescott, born Febru- 
ary 8, x888 ; Wilham Barbour, born September 7, 
1892 ; and Claudius Ralph Farnsworth, born March 

25> 1895- 



with various fraternal orders, being Past Grand of 
Eagle Lodge No. 2 I. O. O. F., Past Chief Patriarch 
of Moshassuck Encampment No. 2 I. O. O. F., 
Past Councillor of Narragansett Council No. 2 
Order of United American Mechanics, and Past 



f 



#1^. 



:? 







FOLSOM, Fred William, sail-maker, Provi- 
dence, is a native of Wiscasset, Maine, born April 
16, 1848, son of Samuel C. and AnnE. (Dammon) 
Folsom. His ancestry on both sides were among 
the early pioneers in Maine, on his father's side 
settlers in Starks ; on his mother's side he is a de- 
scendant of the Newburys of Newburyport, Mass., 
who went to Maine in 1765. His educational 
advantages were confined to the district school of 
his native town. After working more or less in the 
lumber mills of Wiscasset, at the age of seventeen 
he apprenticed himself to John Topham and learned 
the business of sail-making. In 1871 he came to 
Providence and went to work at his trade for George 
S. Dow. After serving in this connection for quite 
a long term of years, in 1884 he bought a half 
interest with Albert Jillson, and upon the latter's 
death, which occurred early in 1894, he asumed the 
control and management of the business, under the 
firm name of Fred W. Folsom & Company. They 
have lately removed from the old stand in South 
Water street to new and commodious quarters 
at 168 Dyer street, where they now have one of the 
largest and best equipped establishments for the 
manufacture of sails, awnings, tents, canopies, etc., 
in the state. Mr. Folsom is prominently connected 



FRED W. FOLSOM- 

Commander Canton W. S. Johnson No. i I. O O. F. 
Besides the above named, he is a member of Prov- 
idence Lodge No. 17 Knights of Pythias, the Rhode 
Island Yacht Club, and the Ninety-two Club of 
Boston. He is a Republican in politics. He was 
married, January 8, 1887, to Miss Dora A. Whit- 
marsh ; they have no children. 



GORTON, William Arthur, M. D., Superin- 
tendent of the Butler Hospital for the Insane, 
Providence, was born in North Brookfield, Madison 
county, N. Y., June 21, 1854, son of Tillinghast 
and Adaline M. (Rice) Gorton. He is descended 
on the paternal side from Samuel Gorton, one of 
the early settlers of Rhode Island, and on the ma- 
ternal side from the Wight family, prominent among 
the early residents of Massachusetts. His educa- 
tion was acquired in the public and in private 
schools. He completed a classical and scientific 
course in Whitestown Seminary, ^^l^itestown, N. Y., 
graduating in 1873, and entered the Medical De- 
partment of the University of the city of New York 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



105 



in 1874, from which he was graduated in 1876, 
having completed two full courses of lectures, an 
intermediate course and a course of instruction by 
Dr. J. E. Winters of New York city. In April 1876 
he entered Bellevue Hospital in New York city, 




WILLIAM A. GORTON, 

and after serving the regulation period of eighteen 
months in that institution went to Cooperstown, 
N. Y., and commenced practice in partnership with 
Dr. L. H. Hills, now of Binghamton. A few 
months later he was offered a position in the New 
York State Asylum for Insane Criminals, which he 
accepted in June 1878. In January 1882 he was 
appointed Assistant Physician to the Danvers Luna- 
tic Hospital, Danvers, Mass., of which institution 
he was chosen Superintendent in 1886. He re- 
signed in May 1888 to become Superintendent of 
the Butler Hospital, Providence, which position he 
holds at the present time. Dr. Gorton deems it 
the chief honor of his professional career that he 
has been chosen to succeed such men as Isaac Ray, 
John W. Sanger and William B. Goldsmith at the 
Butler Hospital. The last named was his intimate 
associate and warm friend ; and he is mindful of 
the great benefits he derived from this association, 
while the many important plans for the develop- 
ment of the Butler Hospital that were devised by 
Dr. Goldsmith, he has endeavored to further pro- 
mote and carry out. Of Dr. Gorton's own work at 



the Butler Hospital the least that can be said is 
that he has endeavored to maintain the high stand- 
ard of the institution established by his predeces- 
sors. Dr. Gorton is a member and first Vice- 
President of the Rhode Island Medical Society, 
and a member of the American and the Boston med- 
ico-psychological associations. He is also a member 
of the St. Botolph Club of Boston, and of the Provi- 
dence Athletic Association. He was married, June 
8, 1877, to Miss Mary Elizabeth Langley of Dan- 
vers, Mass. ; they have had four children : Mary 
Putnam (deceased), Janet Langley, Miriam Rogers 
and William Tillinghast Gorton. 



GRANT, Robert Alexander, M. D., Crompton, 
was born in Pictou, Nova Scotia, December 24, 
1870, came to Providence in October 1871, son of 
William and Jessie (MacDougald) Grant. He ac- 
quired his early education in the Providence public 
schools, fitted for college at the College Hill School 
in Providence, pursued a course at Union College, 
and finally graduated from the Albany, N. Y., Med- 




ROBERT ALEX. GRANT. 

ical College. His medical training was received 
in the Albany City Hospital and in dispensary 
practice, and he entered upon the practice of his 
profession in Providence, June i, 1895, removing 
to Crompton in September following. He is Chan- 



io6 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



cellor Commander of Narragansett Lodge K. of P., 
being the youngest "C. C." in the state, and is a 
member of Washington Lodge No. ii I. O. O. F., 
Howard Encampment I. O. O. F., and one of the 
leading college secret societies. He is unmarried. 



GRINNELL, Frederick, President of the Gen- 
eral Fire Extinguisher Company, and inventor of the 
Grinnell Automatic Fire Extinguisher, was born 
August 14, 1836, in New Bedford, Mass., the son of 
Lawrence and Rebecca Smith (Williams) Grinnell. 




FREDERICK GRINNELL. 

The Grinnells were French Huguenots, who came to 
this country in 1632 and settled near Newport, R. I. 
They intermarried with the well-known families of 
Williams, Smith, Ricketson, Tallman, Russell and 
Howland, all of whom were among the first settlers 
of New England and distinguished in its history and 
social and business life. This portion of the ancestry 
of Mr. Grinnell is all of English descent. He received 
his early education in the Friends' Academy of New 
Bedford, Mass. He adopted civil engineering as a 
profession and studied at Rensselaer Polytechnic 
Institute of Troy, N. Y., from which he graduated 
in 1855. ^^ commenced his practical work as 
draughtsman together with shop practice at the 
Jersey City Locomotive Works in the fall of that 



year. In the summer of 1858 he was assistant 
engineer in the construction of the Burlington & 
Missouri River Railroad, now a part of the Chicago, 
Burlington & Quincy. He returned to the Jersey 
City Locomotive Works and remained until i860, 
when he entered the employ of the Corliss Steam 
Engine Company, Providence, as draughtsman, and 
was soon after elected Treasurer of the Company. 
He acted as Superintendent of the Works, and dur- 
ing the war went on three trips on the steamer 
Blackstone, because of his familiarity with the con- 
struction of the engines designed by Mr. Corliss. 
One of their trips was in search of the line-of-battle 
ship Vermont, which had been given up for lost. 
In January 1865 he accepted the appointment of 
manager of the Jersey City Locomotive Works, 
then leased by the Atlantic & Great Western Rail- 
road Company. In the fall of the same year he 
was appointed superintendent of motive power and 
machinery of the Atlantic & Great Western Rail- 
road. Previous to taking this position he spent 
three months in visiting and studying the large 
mechanical establishments of England and Scotland. 
He remained in the employ of the Atlantic & Great 
Western Railroad Company until 1869, when he 
purchased an interest in the Providence Steam and 
Gas Pipe Company, of which he has since been the 
President, Business Manager and Mechanical En- 
gineer. The corporation has done a very large 
business in equipping manufacturing establishments 
with steam-heating apparatus, gas works for lighting 
them, and in providing them with automatic fire- 
extinguishers. It is in this last department in 
which Mr. Grinnell has accomplished a work of 
original genius of the utmost practical importance, 
and which has made his name known all over the 
civilized world. He became attracted by an inven- 
tion of Henry Parmelee of New Haven, of an auto- 
matic fire-extinguisher exhibited in 1874. In 1878 
the Providence Steam and Gas Pipe Company began 
the manufacture of fire-extinguishers under an ar- 
rangement with Mr. Parmelee. Since that time Mr. 
Grinnell has so improved and perfected them that 
he has completely revolutionized the system of fire 
protection in manufacturing establishments through- 
out the world. He has solved the problem of 
automatic fire-extinguishing in buildings so high as 
to be above water service, and when water would 
freeze in the pipes, by a system of air pipes and 
force pumps acting automatically. The apparatus 
has been very generally introduced not only in this 
country but in Europe, India, and Australia. His 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



107 



improvements in the apparatus include some forty 
patented devices. The work has received the en- 
dorsement of all the principal fire insurance com- 
panies, and has resulted in a reduction in the rates 
of insurance for manufacturing establishments of 
from thirty to fifty per cent and in other buildings 
of twenty-five per cent. He is President of the 
Providence Steam and Gas Pipe Company and of 
the General Fire Extinguisher Company, and a 
Director of the National Bank of Commerce of 
Providence, the Mechanics National Bank of New 
Bedford, the Bunnell Manufacturing Company of 
Pawtucket, and the Wamsutta Mills of New Bed- 
ford. He is a member of the American Society 
of Mechanical Engineers, the Hope Club, and the 
New York and Eastern yacht clubs. He is an 
enthusiastic yachtsman and spends his brief vaca- 
tions in that recreation. In politics he is a Re- 
publican. He voted first for Abraham Lincoln, 
and for every Republican Presidential candidate 
since. He married, October 15, 1865, Miss Alice 
Brayton Almy, daughter of William Almy of New 
Bedford, who died January 5, 1871; they had two 
children : Lawrence and Alice Almy Grinnell. He 
married, February 17, 1894, Miss Mary Brayton 
Page, daughter of John H. W. Page of Boston ; they 
have five children : Russell, Lydia, Frederick, Law- 
rence and Francis B. Grinnell. 



HALL, Nelson Read, M. D., of Warren, was 
born in Warren, March 31, 1868, son of John 
Champlin and Sarah Wheaton (Read) Hall. On 
his father's side he is descended from Bishop Hoare 
of England, and Samuel Champlain. His great- 
great-grandfather, Samuel Hoar, made gun carriages 
for the colonial forces during the Revolution. The 
latter's grandson, Allen Carey Hoar, married Mary 
Champlin, a direct descendant of Samuel Cham- 
plain ; and John Champlin Hall, their son^ married 
Sarah W. Read, his second wife, who was the 
mother of the subject of this sketch. His maternal 
ancestry in this country dates from John Read of 
Rehoboth, and Ephraim Wheaton of Rehoboth who 
landed at Salem in 1636. John Read landed in 
1630 and came to Rehoboth in 1643. His son 
John was killed by Indians at Pierce's fight in King 
Philip's war. By marriage the Reads were con- 
nected with the Carpenters, Abels and many of the 
old families of New England. The early Wheatons 
were prominent in the Baptist Church, Elder 
Ephraim and Deacon Robert being noted as elo- 



quent preachers. One Wheaton endowed a scholar- 
ship at Brown University. The families on both 
sides were closely connected with the early history 
of the country, and one of the Reads (George) was 
a signer of the Declaration of Independence. In 
all branches of the family the ancestry can be 
traced back into the parent countries of England, 
Wales and France. The subject of this sketch re- 
ceived his early education in the public schools of 
Warren, graduating from the high school in 1887, 
and teaching chemistry, physics and botany in the 
school during the year following. Entering Johns 
Hopkins University in October 1888 as a special 




NELSON READ HALL. 

student in biology, he remained one year and was 
compelled to give up because of failing health. In 
September 1889 he entered Long Island College 
Hospital and was graduated March 23, 1892 ; was 
laboratory assistant in the department of histology 
and pathology during the years 1889-90, and assist- 
ant in the throat and nose department, under Pro- 
fessor French, in 1891-92. He entered upon the 
practice of medicine at his old home, Warren, about 
May or June 1892, and has enjoyed an unusually 
good and successful practice. He is Surgeon of the 
Warren Artillery, was Vice-President of the Warren 
High School Alumni Association in 1893-94, and 
is a member of the Rhode Island Medical Society, 
Providence Medical Society, Long Island College 



io8 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Hospital Alumni Association, Union Club, Royal 
Arcanum and Kickemuit Grange. In politics he 
takes little interest. He is very much interested in 
natural history, and finds his chief recreation in 
hunting and fishing. He is also keenly interested 
in genealogy and the early history of our country, 
and especially in local history. He married, Octo- 
ber 4, 1893, Edith Wheaton of Boston, by whom he 
has one child, a son : John Robert Wheaton Hall. 



HARRIS, William Andrew, builder of the Harris- 
Corliss Steam Engines, Providence, was born in 




the eighth generation of William 
Island with Roger 



WM. A, HARRIS. 

South Woodstock, Conn., March 2, 1835, ^°^ ^^ 
Elisha and Mary Ann (Winsor) Harris. He is a 
descendant in 

Harris who came to Rhode 
Williams. His early education was acquired in the 
public schools, supplemented by a term at boarding 
school in South Williamstown, Mass., in the summer 
of 1 85 1. He spent the three years from 1852 to 
1855 as clerk in the Union Bank of Providence, and 
early in the latter year entered into the employ of 
the Providence Forge and Nut Company (now the 
Rhode Island Tool Company) as draftsman. In 
April 1856 he entered the drafting room of Corliss 
& Nightingale, afterwards the Corliss Steam Engine 
Company, remaining till August 1864, when he com- 



menced business on his own account, on Eddy 
street, in what was, in Dorr times. Governor Dorr's 
headquarters. In November 1868 he removed to a 
new location on Park street, where he has continued 
building the Harris-CorHss Engine to the present 
time. Mr. Harris has represented his ward in the 
City Council, and was a member of the House in 
the State Legislature for the four years 1883-86 in- 
clusive. He is a Republican in politics. He has 
recently resigned from the Commercial Club, of 
which he was a member nearly fifteen years, and also 
from the Pomham Club, Advance Club and the 
Providence Business Men's Association. He was 
married, September 8, 1859, to Miss Eleanor Frances 
Morrill, who died October 28, 1895, leaving two 
children: Frederick A. W., born August 22, 1864, 
and William A. Harris, Jr., born June 22, 1872. 



HARKINS, Matthew, Roman Catholic Bishop of 
Providence, was born in Boston, Mass., November 
17, 1845, th^ ^°'^ of Pa trick and Margaret (Kranitch) 
Harkins. He is of Irish ancestry. He received 




MATTHEW HARKINS, 

his early education in the public schools of Boston, 
Holy Cross College, Worcester, Mass., and St. Ed- 
munds College, Douai, France, from which he 
graduated in 1864. He received his training for the 
priesthood in the Seminary of St. Sulpice of Paris 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



109 



and the Gregorian University of Rome. He served 
as assistant pastor of the church of the Immaculate 
Conception of Salem, Mass., from 1870 to 1876. 
He was pastor of St. Malachi's church of Arlington, 
Mass., from 1876 to 1884, and of St. James' church 
of Boston from 1884 to 1887. He was appointed 
Bishop of Providence in 1887, and has since 
administered the affairs of that diocese. 



HAYWARD, William Salisbury, Mayor of the 
city of Providence for three terms, 1881-83, was 
born in Foster, R. I., February 26, 1835. In 1847, 
at the age of twelve, he went to Old Warwick, R. I., 
where he engaged in farming, attending the district 
school during the winter months. Removing to 
Providence, his present home, in 185 1, he obtained 
employment in a bakery establishment and followed 
that occupation until 1858, when he purchased an 
interest with Rice & Hayward, biscuit manufactur- 
ers. In 1863 Mr. Hayward bought the entire inter- 
est of the firm, and continued in business alone un- 
til 1865, when Mr. Fitz- James Rice again became 
his partner, which co-partnership has existed until 
the present time. His fellow-citizens were not long 
in recognizing the qualities that were chiefly instru- 
mental in making his establishment one of the large 
and prosperous industries of the city, and in conse- 
quence he was called upon to fill many positions of 
honor and public trust. In 1872 he was elected to 
the Common Council, and was annually re-elected 
until 1876. During his terms of office in this 
branch of the city government he served on many 
important committees, acting as chairman of the 
committees on fire department, public parks, etc. 
In 1876 he was elected to the Board of Aldermen, 
was chosen President of that body in 1878 and 
served in that capacity three years, and in 1880 he 
was elected Mayor, succeeding Hon. Thomas A. 
Doyle. He brought to the administration of the 
Mayor's office the ripe experience of a long train- 
ing in the two legislative branches of the city gov- 
ernment, as well as the enterprising spirit and 
sound judgment which had characterized his busi- 
ness career ; and that he filled the executive office 
to the satisfaction of the community is evidenced 
by the commendatory terms in which his chief mag- 
istracy was referred to, both in editorial utterances 
and reports of public addresses, by the press of that 
period. After serving as Mayor three terms he de- 
clined a renomination, and ex-Mayor Doyle again 
succeeded to the office. Mr. Hayward has always 



been, in private as well as public capacity, a sup- 
porter and earnest promoter of all measures for the 
benefit of the city and people, and has contributed 
much of his time and means to the furtherance 
thereof. Besides his extensive private business in- 
terests, Mr. Hayward is President of the Union 
Trust Company, a Director in the National Eagle 
Bank and the Citizens' Savings Bank, and a mem- 
ber of the Sinking Funds Commission of the city of 
Providence. He was elected Representative to the 
State Legislature in 1885 and re-elected in 1886, 
and was appointed a member of the State Board of 
Charities and Corrections by Governor Bourne in 




WILLIAM S. HAYWARD. 

1884, to which office he was re-appointed by Gov- 
ernor Wetmore in 1886. He served five years as 
Chairman of the Committee on Buildings and Re- 
pairs of the last named Board, during which time 
many new and important buildings were erected at 
the various state institutions, notably the new alms- 
house, a structure seven hundred and thirty feet in 
length, with accommodations for four hundred peo- 
ple. Mr. Hayward is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, 
Knights of Pythias, Providence Light Infantry, 
Franklin Lyceum, Squantum Club and various 
other societies and organizations. He was mar- 
ried, November 9, 1859, to Miss Lucy Maria Rice, 
daughter of Fitz-James Rice, Esq., of Providence. 



no 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



HAYES, Charles, M. D., was born in that part 
of Berwick now known as North Berwick, Maine, 
March 7, 1840, and died in Providence, R. I., June 
8, 1894. He was the fifth child of Elijah and Jane 
(Hayes) Hayes. His ancestors came to this country 
from Scotland early in the seventeenth century. The 
family in Berwick dates back to the beginning of 
the eighteenth century, and the subject of this 
sketch was of the third generation born on the farm 
which is still in possession of the family. His edu- 
cation began in the little country schoolhouse of the 
district where he was born. When older he was a 
student at Berwick Academy, South Berwick, and 




CHARLES HAYES. 

later at Phillips Exeter Academy. An injury in early 
youth reduced him to the use of crutches, and pre- 
cluded regular study and out-of-doors sports for a 
long period. This finally resulted in necrosis of the 
tibia, from which he suffered many years,the last piece 
of diseased bone being removed by himself in the 
ordinary method with knife and forceps when serv- 
ing in the army thirteen years after the accident 
which occasioned his misfortune. Through the 
kindness of an uncle, Dr. Jacob Hayes, then a 
practitioner in Charlestown, Mass., he received the 
best surgical skill and advice that Boston afforded, 
and to the suggestion of this uncle was due his 
choice of the medical profession as his life-work. 
With this end in view, and his preparatory course 



finished, he entered Bowdoin Medical School at 
Brunswick, Me., and subsequently became a student 
at Dartmouth Medical College where he pursued 
his studies to graduation. This however was not 
without interruption. The Civil War was in prog- 
ress, and young Hayes was anxious to enlist but 
his physical condition made that impossible. Later 
came a call for medical assistants in the hospitals 
and that was his opportunity. No physical exami- 
nation was required, and November 1862 found him 
on duty in Washington at Carver Barracks General 
Hospital. Here he at once gained the attention and 
favorable consideration of prominent medical officers, 
and early in 1863 was tendered an appointment as 
Acting Assistant Surgeon, United States Army. Find- 
ing himself qualified he accepted the position and 
was ordered at once to Jefferson Barracks on the 
Mississippi just below St. Louis, and from this date 
onward until May 1868 when he was relieved at his 
own request, he was connected with the army most 
of the time. During General Grant's siege of Vicks- 
burg he rendered efficient aid in caring for the sick 
and wounded upon the hospital transports. From 
this service he was ordered to Baltimore where he 
became a member of the surgical staff of McKims 
Mansion General Hospital. Thence his duties took 
him to Annapolis and subsequently to Fortress 
Monroe and Yorktown. In the summer of 1864, at 
the latter place, blood poisoning developed in such 
severity that he was obliged to leave the army. His 
right arm was practically useless and he had become 
reduced almost to a skeleton. The bracing air of his 
native state soon restored him to comparative health, 
and in October of that year he received his diploma 
at Dartmouth, and a few months later again entered 
the service, reporting for duty at Hilton Head, S. C. 
He was assigned to Charleston, and for nearly two 
years was assistant health officer of that port, his 
headquarters being upon a ship anchored in the 
harbor, and his duties to board every vessel that 
entered that port. From this city he was ordered 
to Wilmington, N. C, and a little later to Anderson, 
S. C. While here, the Blue Lodge and Capitular 
degrees of masonry were conferred upon him, a 
faithful index of the estimation in which he was 
held by the citizens, who could not be accused of 
over-friendliness to northerners at that time. After 
a year at this post he was transferred to Laurens, 
S. C, where his appointment was annulled at his 
own request in May 1868. In resigning from the 
army, Dr. Hayes' intentions were to enter private 
practice, and in order to be more fully equipped 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Ill 



for his profession he pursued his studies farther at 
Harvard. He began his professional career in Fall 
River in April 1869, practised in Bayfield and Ash- 
land, Wisconsin, 1871-73, in Chicago 1873-75, and 
in Providence from November 1875 until his death, 
June 8, 1894. He held at various times the military 
offices of Assistant Surgeon, United States Army, 
ranking as First Lieutenant, 1863-68, Surgeon First 
Battalion Cavalry, Rhode Island Militia, rank of 
Major, 1878-92, and Medical Director Brigade 
Rhode Island Militia on the staff of General Kendall, 
with rank of Lieutenant Colonel, from April 1892 
until his death. He was a member of Hiram 
Masonic Lodge, Anderson, S. C, the association of 
Military Surgeons of the United States, United States 
Veteran Association, Soldiers and Sailors' Historical 
Society, Rhode Island Homoeopathic Medical Society 
of which he was secretary 1883-88 and president 
1888-90, Military Service Institution (N. Y.), 
American Institute of Homoeopathy, Young Men's 
Republican Club, Providence, and Visiting Surgeon 
to the Rhode Island Homoeopathic Hospital from 
the opening of that institution. In politics he was 
a Republican, but never held public office. He was 
married, June 17, 1872, to Miss Abby M. Bennett 
of Fall River, Mass. ; they had four children : 
Jennie Cook, Ruth Bennett, Charles Jr. and Albert 
Bennett Hayes, the latter of whom died in infancy. 
In his character Dr. Hayes added to the activity, 
courage and persistency which we expect to find in 
a man, the delicacy, sensitiveness and consideration 
of a woman. Brave in enduring pain himself, he 
was tender to others in trouble, while in his profes- 
sional life, his fellow physicians characterized him 
as "a man of sound judgment, cautious action, 
gentle treatment and unremitting attention to duty." 



York State Association of Master Painters and the 
Troy Boss Painters'Association, and is also a mem- 
ber of the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, of 



HOLLEN, James H., of Providence, decorative 
painter, was born in New York city, August 28, 1848, 
son of Michael and Mary (Malone) Hollen. His 
ancestry is Celtic. His education was acquired in 
the public schools, and his training for active life 
was obtained with decorative painters of New York. 
He practiced his trade in Troy, N. Y., from 1881 to 
1892, coming to Providence in January 1895. Mr. 
Hollen is a Democrat in politics, and has held 
various offices in public life, in New York state. 
He was a member of the Lansingburgh, N. Y., Water 
Commission, and president of the Village Corpora- 
tion. He has been identified with the Master 
Painters' Association of the United States, and New 




JAS. H. HOLLEN. 



Troy, N. Y., and the Builders and Traders' Ex- 
change of Providence. He was married in 1875 to 
Miss Katie A. Rayher ; they have four children : 
Ora, Marie, Anna and Eddie Hollen. 



JACOBY, Douglas Peter Alexander, physician 
and surgeon, Adamsville, was born in South 
Whitehall, Lehigh County, Pa., August 6, 1873, son 
of Edwin C. and Ehzabeth (Hoffman) Jacoby. He 
received his early education in the common schools, 
in the Commercial College at Allentown, Pa., and 
the Pennsylvania Normal School. His first busi- 
ness work was as an operator in the telegraph office 
at Coplay, Pa., for the Lehigh Valley Railroad 
Company. In 1889 he entered E. S. Heiberger's 
wholesale and retail drug store at Allentown, Pa., 
as clerk, and the following year acted as head clerk 
and travelling salesman. In September 1891 he 
entered the Starling Medical College, Columbus, 
Ohio, where he studied for three years, graduating 
March 22, 1894. He passed a satisfactory exami- 
nation before the Board of Examiners at Mount 
Carmel Hospital in the same city in 1892, where 
he served for two years as Assistant Physician and 



I 12 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Surgeon, and at the same time was a student in the 
office of Professors W. D. & C. S. Hamilton. After 
graduation he located in Adamsville, Newport 
county, R. I. Dr. Jacoby is now taking a special 
course on the eye, ear, nose and throat in the Post- 




education in the public schools of Providence, and 
graduated from Brown University in the class of 
1867 with the degree of A. B., subsequently receiv- 
ing that of A. M. in course. He was engaged in 
the lumber business in Providence from 1867 to 
1874, when he was appointed Mayor's clerk by 
Hon. Thomas A. Doyle. He held this position 
until 1879, when he was elected City Clerk, being 
elected successively until 1890, when he resigned 
to accept the position of Secretary of the Union 
Railroad Company. He is at present Secretary of 
the Union Railroad Company, the Cable Tramway 
Company, the Pawtucket Street Railway Company, 
and the Pawtuxet Valley Electric Street Railroad 
Company. He was a member of the Providence 
School Committee from 1870 to 1879, when he 
resigned; he was again elected in 1891 and is now 
Chairman of the sub-committee on high schools. He 
was Major of the First Battalion of Cavalry, Rhode 
Island militia, from 1875 to 1879, when he resigned. 
He is a member of the Sons of the American 
Revolution, the Providence Athletic Association 



D, p. A. JACOBY. 

Graduate College of New York City. He is a 
member of the Rhode Island Medical Society, 
Electra Lodge I. O. O. F. of Adamsville, Little 
Compton Grange Patrons of Husbandry, Young 
Men's Christian Association of Allentown, Pa., 
Epworth League of Columbus, O., Mannoer Choir 
of South Whitehall, Pa., and literary societies in the 
same place. He has also been recently elected a 
member of the Thurber Medical Association of 
Milford, Mass. In politics he is a Democrat. Dr. 
Jacoby was married, February 18, 1896, to Miss Mary 
Lois Almy, only daughter of the late Philip Almy, 
of Little Compton, R. I. 



JOSLIN, Henry Van Amburgh, Secretary of 
the Union Railroad Company, was born in Exeter, 
R. I., April 24, 1846, son of John H. and Julia A. 
(Vaughn) Joslin. His ancestors on both sides 
came from England about the middle of the 
seventeenth century, and settled in the southern 
part of Rhode Island. He received his early 




^m^aimii 



"gjjjjjj^^^^^^jg^g 



HENRY V. A. JOSLIN. 



and the Providence Board of Trade. In politics 
he is a Republican. He married, October 29, 
1867, Miss Henrietta A. Briggs; they have five 
children: Efifie B., Julia V., Harry A., Marion C. 
and Royal K. Joslin. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



113 



KEENE, George Frederick, Resident Physician 
and Deputy Superintendent of the State Insane 
Asylum, was born in Whitman, Mass., October 22, 
1858, son of Africa and Betsey (Turner) Keene. 
His maternal grandfather, Daniel Keene, was a 
prominent member of the Society of Friends of 
Pembroke, Mass., and his maternal grandmother 
was Betsey (Turner) Keene, the daughter of Colo- 
nel Amos Turner of the Continental army of the 
Revolution ; the father of Amos Turner was Ezekiel 
Turner, a Colonel in the French and Indian war. 
His paternal grandfather, Meshach Keene of Pem- 
broke, was a private in the Revolutionary war, and 
his paternal grandmother, Anna (Hersey) Keene, 
was a daughter of James Hersey of Abington, Mass., 
also a private in the Revolutionary war. He was 
educated in the South Abington (now Whitman) 
high school, and graduated from Brown University 
in 1875, receiving the degree of A. M. in 1878 in 
course. He entered Harvard University, Medical 
Department, in 1875, and graduated in 1879, hav- 
ing served in the Boston City Hospital for eighteen 
months. He was one of the eight successful com- 
petitors out of over twenty who came up for exami- 
nation at the Boston City Hospital, and was assigned 
to the surgical side, receiving his diploma from the 
hospital in 1880. He commenced practice in Prov- 
idence in May of that year, and was soon appointed 
to the dispensary district of the First and Tenth 
wards. Soon after he was appointed out-patient 
surgeon to the Rhode Island Hospital and lecturer 
to the hospital training school for nurses on physiol- 
ogy and materia medica, and retained the position 
until his removal from that city in 1886. In 1884- 
85, during the illness of Professor Chapin, he was 
engaged to lecture one term to the students of 
Brown University on physiology until the professor 
recovered his health. He was elected Physician to 
the State Institution at Cranston, R. I., in March 
1883, and visited there three times per week until 
1886, when he was elected by the Board of State 
Charities and Corrections, a Resident Physician 
and Deputy Superintendent of the State Insane 
Asylum, which position he now holds. Dr. Keene is 
a thirty-second degree Mason, and a Past Master of 
Mount Vernon Lodge No. 4 of Providence. He is 
a member of the American Medical Association, the 
American Academy of Medicine, the American 
Medico-Psychological Association, the New York 
Medico-Legal Society, the Harvard Graduate Club, 
the Harvard Club of Rhode Island, the Boston City 
Hospital Association, the Rhode Island Medical 



Society, the Providence Medical Association, the 
Providence Clinical Club, the Pomham and West 
Side clubs of Providence and the Providence Ath- 
letic Association. He has never entered poHtics or 
taken much interest in political affairs, although he 
has always voted the Republican ticket. Dr. Keene 
has written several monographs on different subjects 
pertaining to insanity and in 1882 invented a splint 
for Colles fracture, now considerably used. He 
delivered the annual address before the Rhode Is- 
land Medical Society, June 6, 1895, and has made 
many experimental researches with regard to the 
relation of bovine and human tuberculosis, as was 




GEORGE F. KEENE. 

shown in the last annual report of the Board of 
State Charities and Corrections. He married, Jan- 
uary I, 1884, Miss Frances B., youngest daughter of 
Hon. Erastus Redman of Ellsworth, Me. ; they 
have two children : George Frederick, Jr., and 
Bessie Turner Keene. 



KELLIHER, Michael William, physician and 
surgeon, Pawtucket, was born in Palmer, Mass., 
February 20, 1864, son of Cornelius and Mary 
(Maunsell) Kelliher. He received his preparatory 
education in the public schools of Palmer and grad- 
uated from the high school. He subsequently spent 
two years at the University of Vermont. He 



114 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



adopted medicine as a profession and studied at 
the Medical College of the University of New York, 
from which he graduated in March 1886. After 
taking a post-graduate course he began the practice 
of medicine in Pawtucket the same year. He was 




MICHAEL W, KELLIHER. 

appointed Medical Examiner for Pawtucket and 
Lincoln by Governor Davis in 1890, for the term of 
six years. In November 1889 he was elected a 
member of the School Committee of Pawtucket for 
three years. He is Consulting Physician of St. 
Joseph's Hospital, Providence, is a member of the 
Rhode Island Medical Society, and the Providence 
and Pawtucket Medical Association, and Vice-Pres- 
ident of the Rhode Island Medico-Legal Society. 
He is unmarried. 



KIMBALL, James Madison, retired cotton man- 
ufacturer and merchant, and President of the Second 
National Bank of Providence, was born in Smithfield, 
R. I., May 12, 1814, son of Paul T. and Lillie 
(Warner) Kimball. He was educated in the com- 
mon and high schools, the best afforded at that 
period, and for the first twenty- five years of his busi- 
ness life was engaged in the manufacture of cotton 
goods, at Fall River, Mass., and at Kirkland, N. Y. 
Mr. Kimball spent six winters in the south, one at 
New Orleans and five at Memphis, in the latter place 
establishing a house for the purchase of cotton, 



under the firm name of Taber & Kimball, which 
continued until the breaking out of the war, and did 
a large and successful business. In the year i860 
he removed to Providence and in association with 
his two sons opened a cotton commission house, 
under the firm name of J. M. Kimball & Sons, and 
continued until 1880, at which time he retired from 
all active business. Mr. Kimball has been very suc- 
cessful in his business life, and although advanced in 
years, he is active still, and fills various important 
official positions of trust and pubHc usefulness. He 
is President of the Second National Bank of Provi- 
dence, having served in that capacity since 1884. 
In Utica, N. Y., he was in 1845 elected a Director 
in the Utica City Bank. In 1870 he was chosen a 
Director in the Franklin Savings Bank of Providence ; 
in 1884 he was elected a Director in the Blackstone 
Mutual and Merchants Mutual fire-insurance com- 
panies of Providence ; he was elected a Director, 
and also one of the Executive Committee, in the 
Industrial Trust Company of Providence, in 1887 ; 
and in 1893 he was elected a Director in the Rhode 
Island Safe Deposit Company, all of which offices 
he holds at the present time. He is also a member 
of the Central Congregational Church of Providence* 
and of the Congregational Club of that city. In 
politics he is a Republican. Mr. Kimball was 
abroad in 1869, with a portion of his family, for 
about eight months, travelling extensively in England, 
France, Germany, Austria and Italy. He has been 
twice married : first, August 4, 1835, to Miss Caro- 
line Maria, daughter of Uriah Benedict of Pawtucket, 
which union was blessed by five children, two of 
whom are living : James C. and William B. Kimball ; 
and second, February 17, 1848, to Miss Cornelia, 
daughter of Otis Walcott, of Smithfield, R. I. 



KIMBALL, Harry Waldo, M. D., Providence, 
Externe of the Dermatological Department of the 
Rhode Island Hospital, was born in Woonsocket, 
R. I., January 17, 1868, son of James Frederick and 
Ada Frances (Wales) Kimball. He acquired his 
early education in the public schools, and at the Coles 
English and Classical school, Pawtucket, fitting for 
college at the last-named, and entered in 1888 the 
Portland (Maine) School for Medical Instruction, 
later the Medical Department of Bowdoin College, 
from which he was graduated in 189 1. During 
1890 he was assistant in the Portland Dispensary, 
and the following year ser\-ed as clinical clerk 
of the Maine General Hospital. In 1891-92 he 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



"5 



filled the position of Interne of Rhode Island State 
Institutions and the Insane Hospital, and January 
I, 1893, was appointed Externe of the Derma- 
tological Department of the Rhode Island Hospital, 
in which capacity he is now serving. Dr. Kimball 
has served as Assistant Surgeon, with rank of First 
Lieutenant, of the First Regiment Infantry Brigade 
Rhode Island Militia, and Assistant Surgeon First 
Light Infantry Regiment 1892-94 ; also as Medical 
Examiner of the Union Mutual Life Insurance 
Company of Portland, Maine, the Ancient Order of 
United Workmen and the Independent Order of 
Odd Fellows. He is a Fellow of the Rhode Island 




H. W. KIMBALL. 

Medical Society, member of the Providence Medi- 
cal Association, the Medical Improvement Club 
and the Rhode Island Medico-Legal Society, also of 
Harmony Lodge of Masons, Washington Park Lodge 
of Odd Fellows and What Cheer Lodge, Ancient 
Order United Workmen, being Master of the last 
named. In politics he is a straight Republican, but 
has never held political office. He married, January 
15, 1896, Miss Emma L. Hayward. 



gold watch-case and the founder of the Ladd Watch 
Case Company. Mr. Ladd received his early edu- 
cation in the Providence schools, and graduated 
from the Elmwood Grammar School in 1889 and 
from the Providence Bryant & Stratton Business 





FRANK F. LADD. 

College in 1890. He then entered the service of 
the Ladd Watch Case Company, which he left to 
accept the position of Treasurer's clerk in the office 
of the Union Railroad Company. He afterwards 
accepted a position in the office of the H. W. Ladd 
Company, drygoods dealers, and had charge of the 
retail accounts. He resigned the position in 1892 
and has since been engaged in the real estate and 
stock-brokerage business. He also holds the 
office of Secretary and Treasurer of a Rhode Island 
company engaged in the manufacture of gas gener- 
ators. He is an enthusiastic yachtsman and an ac- 
tive member of the Rhode Island Yacht Club. He 
is a member of the order of America Mechanics 
and of the Young Men's Christian Association, and 
is a member and treasurer of various social organi- 
zations. In politics he holds Republican views. 



LADD, Frank Foster, of Providence, was born 
in Providence, February i, 1873, the son of George 
W. and Mary J. (Bennett) Ladd. His father was 
widely known as the inventor of the Ladd filled 



LADD, John Westgate, physician, Newport, was 
born in East Greenwich, R. I., October 8, 1836, son 
of John Gardner and Phebe Ann (Watson) Ladd. 
The ancestry of the Ladd family is of English ori- 



ii6 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



gin, and is of great antiquity. They came to New 
England in 1633, on the ship John and Mary. On 
the maternal side his ancestry is also English, from 
the distinguished lineage of the Spencers. His 
father, John Gardner Ladd, who was a native of 
Rhode Island and came to Newport with his family 
in 1843, was a man of great originality and inventive 
genius, by profession an architect, and of a high order. 
John Westgate spent his early life with his father, 
from whom he learned and practiced with him much 
of his art. During this period he was much inter- 
ested in mechanism, and later on other branches of 




JOHN WESTGATE LADD. 

science became of interest to him and engaged his 
attention and stuty. He is largely self-taught, as 
the usual routine of the schools did not appeal to 
his fancy or his desires. He commenced practice 
as a physician in New York City at the age of 
twenty-five. His methods are peculiarly his own, 
but are in strict conformity and harmony with the 
principles of advanced science. He never uses the 
knife, and his greatest success has been in the 
treatment of chronic diseases, — tumors, cancers 
and kidney troubles being his specialties. As a 
physician-specialist his field is a very wide one, and 
although his winter residence has been New York 
city and his summers have been spent at (he family 
home in Newport, his practice has extended over 



the country from Chicago to New Orleans and from 
Maine to Mexico. Although a Republican, he 
takes no active part in politics, and is not a club or 
society member, preferring the surroundings of his 
home and family in his leisure hours. Dr. Ladd 
was married September 27, 1868, to Miss Caroline 
Augusta Vaughan, of Newport ; they have had two 
children : Maude Crosby (now Mrs. Charles Phillips 
Scott of Boston) and Harry Watson Ladd, now 
deceased. 

LARRY, John Hale, clergyman, was born in 
South Windham, Me., December 2, 1843, the son 
of Joseph Child and Mary (Purington) Larry. His 
father was a sturdy yeoman of the old New England 
type, and his mother a woman of great intelligence 
and strong religious convictions, which were im- 
parted to her children. He received his early 
education in the public schools, and early devoted 
himself to the profession of teaching, beginning at 
the age of sixteen, and the same year published " A 
Key to Outline Map, " which was much needed in 
the schools of the state. While supporting himself 
by teaching he attended a course at Gorham 
Academy, walking eight miles a day for the purpose. 
When the civil war broke out he was engaged in 
teaching at Little Falls, N. H. He gave up his 
school and enlisted as a private in Company I, 
Eighth Massachusetts Volunteers, from Lynn. He 
participated with his regiment in the campaigns in 
North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. On the 
expiration of his term of service he re-enlisted in the 
Eleventh Unattached Company, Massachusetts 
Heavy Artillery, stationed at Fort Independence, in 
which he was made Orderly Sergeant. He success- 
fully passed an examination for promotion and was 
commissioned a Lieutenant in Company H, on 
which occasion his comrades of Company G pre- 
sented him with a dress sword and equipment cost- 
ing over a hundred dollars. While in the service 
he acted as Adjutant at Fort Lincoln, D. C, and 
had charge of the new commissioned officers' school. 
He was in command of the detachment which pur- 
sued and nearly captured John H. Surratt after the 
assassination of President Lincoln. After the close 
of the war he resigned and resumed the profession of 
teaching, and for about six years was Principal of the 
Weston High School. He was principal of the New 
England Christian Institute for a time, and had 
charge of the Normal School and Agricultural School 
at Hampton, Va., during the absence of Gen. .Arm- 
strong in Europe for two years raising funds for the 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



117 



building. But for the effect of the climate he would 
have continued in mission work at the South. He 
established "A School of Practice" at Penacook, 
N. H., to exemplify his educational ideas, but gave 
it up to adopt the ministerial profession, for which 




JOHN HALE LARRY. 

he had long felt a predilection. He was ordained in 
Boston in 1873, and suppHed churches in Lynn for 
about a year. He was then settled in Smytherville, 
N. H., and afterward at Wilmot, when he established 
the " The Kearsage School of Practice." He was 
then settled in Penacook, N. H., and in 1882 re- 
ceived a call to the Free Congregational Church on 
Richmond street, Providence, where he has since 
remained. Since his residence in Providence he 
has taken an active part in social reforms, and par- 
ticularly in temperance. He was for some years 
editor of the Independent Citizen, the Prohibition 
Organ, and is now the editor of the Pointer, an 
all around reform newspaper. On the resignation 
of Gen. C. R. Brayton as Chief of State Police in 
1887 he was offered the position by Governor 
Wetmore, but declined to accept, preferring to 
continue his church work. He is a member of the 
Grand Army of the Republic and has been Chaplain 
of Prescott Post. In 1865 he married Miss Mary 
E. White, a descendant of Peregrine White, the first 
white child born in New England; they have six 
children. 



LEWIS, Nathan Barbour, Justice of the District 
Court of the Second Judicial District, was born in 
Exeter, R. I., February 26, 1842, son of James and 
Mary (Sisson) Lewis. He is a direct descendant 
of John Lewis, who settled in Westerly about 1650. 
His father, commonly known as Deacon Lewis, was 
a captain in the state militia, and took an active 
part in the bloodless campaigns of the Dorr war ; 
he was the son of Col. Nathan B. and Sally 
(Richmond) Lewis. His mother was the daughter 
of Lodowick and Mary (Saunders) Sisson of 
Hopkinton, R. I. He received his early education 
in the public schools, working on the farm summers. 
Pie subsequently spent several terms in private 
schools, and took a commercial course at East 
Greenwich Academy. He taught school for several 
terms beginning in the autumn of 1859. During 
the war of the Rebellion he enlisted as a private 
in the Seventh Rhode Island Volunteers, August 
13, 1862, and served until June 9, 1865, participat- 
ing in all the campaigns of the regiment, and act- 
ing for the greater part of the time as company 
clerk and regimental postmaster, and serving in 




NATHAN B. LEWIS. 

the color guard. Although not robust he was not 
absent a single day from the regiment, and when 
the regiment came from the field after the battle of 
Cold Harbor, he was one of only seven in his com- 
pany who reported for duty. During the last three 



ii8 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



years he has been President of the Seventh Rhode 
Island Veteran Association, an organization com- 
posed of the survivors of that regiment. After a 
term in Greenwich Academy he taught school 
winters until 1867. In the summer of 1866 he 
canvassed in Maine for the Henry Bill Publishing 
Company of Norwich, Conn., in Ohio in the sum- 
mer and autumn of 1867, and in New York the 
following year. In 1869 he bought a farm in 
Exeter and followed farming for three years. In 
June 1872 he was elected Town Clerk of Exeter, 
and held that office continuously until 1888. 
While Town Clerk he was connected with a great 
many legal cases, there being no lawyer in the 
town, and this induced him to study the law, which 
he did in the ofifice of ex-Senator Nathan F. Dixon, 
of Westerly, and was admitted to the Rhode Island 
bar in 1890. While Town Clerk of Exeter he 
wrote most of the deeds and wills executed in the 
town. At the May session of the General Assembly 
in 1886 he was elected Justice of the District Court 
of the Second Judicial District, which embraces the 
towns of Exeter, North Kingston, South Kingstown, 
and the District of Narragansett. On account of 
the distance from railroads he sold his farm on 
Pine Hill, Exeter, and removed to Wickford in 
1887, where he resided until 1894, when he removed 
to West Kingston. At the last May session of the 
General Assembly he was for the third time re- 
elected to the ofifice of Justice of the District Court. 
In July 1890 Judge Lewis opened a law ofifice in 
Westerly, R. I., where he enjoys a large practice 
for a country squire, and has been engaged in set- 
tling a large number of estates. He was a member 
of the Commission appointed to build the new 
County Court House of Washington county. In 
1895 he was appointed by the Supreme Court a 
standing Master in Chancery for Washington 
county. He was Postmaster at Pine Hill, R. I., 
from July i, 1872, to April 1876, when he resigned 
to accept a seat in the General Assembly, and was 
re-appointed in 1879, holding the office until 1888. 
He was a member of the School Committee of 
Exeter from June 1866 to June 1887, and Superin- 
tendent of Schools for the greater part of that time. 
He was a Representative in the General Assembly 
from April 1869 to April 1872, and from April 1876 
to April 1877. He was Assessor of Taxes from 
June 1875 to June 1888, was Trial Justice of Exeter 
previous to the establishment of the District Court, 
was Coroner of the town of Exeter from July 1873 
to June 1886, and was Moderator of North 



Kingston from 1889 to 1892 and Auditor of Town 
Accounts from 1890 to 1894. He is a member of 
the Grand Army of the Republic, Past Commander 
of Charles C. Baker Post of Wickford, and was 
Judge Advocate of the Department of Rhode Island 
1890-1893. He is a member of Exeter Lodge 
I. O. O. F. , having been through all the chairs, and 
is a member of the Grand Lodge ; is a Past Chief 
Patriarch of Uncas Encampment I. O. O. F. of 
Wickford ; a member of Orilla Lodge D. of R., 
Peacedale, R. I. ; of Exeter Grange P. of H. and 
Washington County Pomona Grange ; of Charity 
Lodge A. F. & A. M., Hope Valley ; of Franklin 
Chapter Royal Arch Masons, Hope Valley, and of 
Narragansett Commandery K. T. of Westerly. In 
politics he is a Republican. He married, March 
7, 1869, Miss Rowena K. LilHbridge, who died July 
5, 1879; they had four children: Aubrey C, a 
graduate of Dartmouth College and now studying 
law, Agnes Mabel, Howard and Nathan Richmond 
Lewis, the latter three dying in infancy. He 
married, August 15, 1880, Miss Nettie Chester, 
He resides in West Kingston. 



LEWIS, Sam Warren, florist and nurseryman, 
Olneyville, was born in Exeter, R. I., April 22, 1844, 




SAM V/. LEWIS. 



the son of Warren Gardiner and Amy (Reynolds) 
Lewis. His grandparents on his father's side were 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



119 



Simon and Rhoda (Wood) Lewis. On his mother's 
side they were Samuel and Deborah (Lillibridge) 
Reynolds. On both sides he is of New England 
ancestry. He received his early education in the 
public schools, and was employed on a farm until 
March 1870, when he entered the employ of David 
Moore, Jr., nurseryman, with whom he remained until 
1873, when he commenced business for himself. He 
first purchased some trees and sold them on the 
Crawford-street bridge of Providence, but now has 
an extensive nursery, one of the largest in Rhode 
Island, on Hartford avenue, Olneyville. He has 
also a greenhouse and is engaged in the florist busi- 
ness, and is also interested in bee keeping and a 
large producer of honey : at the present time he 
has sixty-eight colonies of bees. He is a member 
of the Rhode Island Horticultural Society, and of 
the Society for the Encouragement of Domestic 
Industry. He has taken no part in public life and 
is an Independent in politics. He married, January 
10, 1869, Miss Mary Reynolds Lillibridge, who died 
December 29, of the same year; they had one 
child, a son, who died in infancy. 



LIPPITT, Robert Lincoln, Agent and Manager 
of the Lippitt Woolen Company, Providence, was 
born in that city, March 22, i860, son of ex-Gover- 
nor Henry Lippitt and Mary Ann (Balch) Lippitt. 
He is a brother of Charles W. Lippitt, the present 
Governor of the State of Rhode Island. They are 
descendants of John Lippitt, who came to Rhode 
Island in 1638, two years after its settlement by 
Roger Williams ; their ancestors were officers in 
General Washington's army, and in later times were 
all noted as manufacturers. R. Lincoln Lippitt was 
educated in Mowry & Goff' s School in Providence, 
St. Mark's School in Southboro where he spent 
the five years from 1873-78, and at Brown Uni- 
versity, class of 1882. Upon leaving college he 
entered the mill of the Lippitt Woolen Company, 
where he spent three years learning the woolen 
business, after which he sold woolen goods in 
the commission house of Walkinshaw & Voigh, 78 
Worth Street, until 1889, thus familiarizing him- 
self with the commission business. He then became 
Agent and Manager of the Lippitt Woolen Company, 
which position he now holds. He is also a Director 
in the Social Manufacturing Company, the Turkey 
Red Dyeing Company and the Providence Opera 
House Association, all of Providence. He was 
elected as a Member of the House in the State 



Legislature in 1894-95, in which body he is serving 
the present year as Chairman of the Committee on 
Corporation. He is also a member of the Commis- 
sion appointed by the Legislature to represent the 
State at the Atlanta World's Fair, being appointed 
on the Governor's staff. Mr. Lippitt belongs to the 
Hope and Union clubs, the Press Club, Anawam 
Hunt Club, Providence Athletic Association, Rhode 
Island Yacht Club (vice-commodore), What Cheer 
Harbor No. 13 American Association of Masters 
and Pilots of Steam Vessels, and the Sons of the 
American Revolution, all of Providence ; also the 




R. LINCOLN LIPPITT. 

New York Yacht Club, the Society for the Preven- 
tion of Cruelty to Animals, and various other societies 
and organizations. In politics he is a Republican. 
He was married in 1882 and has one daughter: 
Mabelle Clifton Lippitt. At present he is unmarried. 



MARTIN, Joseph Wright, of Warren, President 
of the Warren Trust Company and the Warren Elec- 
tric Light Company, was born in Warren, October 
14, 1852, son of Ezra M. and Cynthia M. (Wright) 
Martin. His parents came to Warren from Reho- 
both, Mass. He received his early education in the 
public schools of Warren, and entering the Commer- 
cial Department of East Greenwich Seminary, East 
Greenwich, R. I., at the age of nineteen, graduated 



I20 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



therefrom in 1873, ^^^ began at once the active 
duties of a commercial life. He is at present as- 
sociated with his father, Ezra M. Martin, in the 
lumber and coal business in Warren, under the firm 
name of E. M. Warren & Company. Mr. Martin is 




graduated from Harvard College with the degree 
of A. B. in 1878, and from the Harvard Medical 
School with the degree of M. D. in 1885. He was 
an assistant in the Bennett Street Dispensary, 
Boston, a pupil for a very short time of Henry B. 
Holton, M. D., of Brattleboro, Vt., and of LeRoy 
Gale, M. D., of New York. He studied for some 
months in the hospital of Paris, France, in 1878. 
He was Interne at the City Hospital in Worcester, 
Mass., in 1883-84, and special laboratory pupil 
under Prof. E. S. Wood, Harvard Medical School, 
1884-85. He practiced casually while on a vacation 
in the summer and autumn of 1885 at Plymouth, 
Mass. He then came to Newport, R. I., and opened 
an office early in January 1886, and has remained 
there since. He was appointed by Governor Taft 
Medical Examiner for District Number Three for 
the term ending February 1859, and declined a 
re-appointment, although urged to accept one by 
Governor D. Russell Brown. He was City Physi- 
cian of Newport for a short time in 1892, but 
resigned because there was too much politics con- 
nected with the office. He was Secretary, Vice- 



JOSEPH W. MARTIN. 

President of the Warren Trust Company and the 
Warren Electric Light Company, Vice President of 
the Warren National Bank, and a Director of the 
National Hope Bank. He has also served as Town 
Treasurer three years, and as President of the Town 
Council in 1894 and 1895. He is a Director of the 
Warren Foundry and Machine Company, also a 
member of Washington Lodge of Masons and of the 
Union Club of Warren. In politics he is a Repub- 
lican. He is unmarried. 



MacKAYE, Henry Goodwin, physician and sur- 
geon, Newport, was born March 16, 1857, in New 
York City, son of Colonel James and Maria Ellery 
(Goodwin) MacKaye. His father's father came 
from Scotland and settled as a farmer in Rome, 
N. Y. His mother's grandfather was Hon. Asher 
Robbins, United States Senator from Rhode Island, 
the "Cicero of the Senate." He received his early 
education at Pastor Godet's school, Neufchatel, 
Switzerland, and graduated from Phillips Acad- 
emy, Exeter, N. H., in the class of 1874. He 




H. G. MACKAYE. 

President, and is now President of the Rhode 
Island Medico-Legal Society. He has been Sec- 
retary of the Newport Sanitary Protection Society 
for many years, and is now Vice-President of 
the Rhode Island Harvard Club, Attendant Physi- 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



121 



cian and Surgeon at the Newport Hospital, Fellow 
of the Rhode Island Medical Society, of the New 
York Medico-Legal Society, of the Alumni Associa- 
tion of the Harvard Medical School, and of the 
Newport Business Men's Association. He was a 
delegate to the Massachusetts Medical Society from 
the Rhode Island Medical Society at the annual 
meeting in 1894. He has written many short-case 
reports for medical journals and societies, and also 
" Some Chemical Aspects of Urinary Analysis " 
(vide a.vch\ves of the Rhode Island Medical Society), 
and a report of the cure of poisoning by Tyrotox- 
icon, published by the Newport Sanitary Protection 
Association in 1893. He married, in January 1887, 
Miss Ellen T. Bailey of Middletown, R. I. 



McCarthy, Patrick Joseph, attorney-at-law. 
Providence, was born in Geevagh parish. County 




PATRICK J. MCCARTHY. 

Sligo, Ireland, September 1848, the son of Patrick 
and Alice (Cullen) McCarthy. His parents came 
to the United States when he was only four years 
of age, and both died within a few weeks after, 
while at quarantine on Deer Island, Boston harbor ; 
their place of burial is unknown. He received his 
early education in the public schools of Boston and 
Somerville, Mass., and became self-supporting from 
a very early age. He came to reside in Provi- 



dence in 1865, and, after acquiring the necessary 
means, devoted himself to the study of the law. 
He graduated from the Law School of Harvard 
University, June 28, 1876, and was admitted to the 
Rhode Island bar the same year. He has since 
successfully practiced his profession in Providence. 
He has been prominent in municipal politics and 
was a member in the Common Council in 1890-92 
and '94. He was elected a Representative to the 
General Assembly from Providence in 1892 and 
1893. He is a member of the Brownson Lyceum, 
was its president three terms. In politics he is 
a Democrat, favoring protection to American indus- 
tries. He was married, August 29, 1875, to Miss 
Anna M. McGinney of Providence, since deceased ; 
they had three children : Mary Josephine, now 
living ; Patrick, Jr., and Alice, deceased. 



McMURROUGH, Thomas, Providence, is a na- 
tive of Ireland, born July 31, 1840, son of Patrick 
and Ann (Foley) McMurrough. His ancestry on 
both sides is Irish. He came to Providence in 
1850, and attended the public schools when he 




THOMAS McMURROUGH. 



could get a chance, which was not often, and his 
entire schooling was covered by a period of not 
more than two years in all, being placed at work in 
a cotton mill when he was eleven years old. He 



122 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



worked in the mills for six years, and in 1858 en- 
gaged with the firm of Marsh & Horton, to learn the 
iron moulding business. When the war broke out 
he entered the employ of John Roach & Sons, New 
York, and remained with them four years, at the end 
of which time he returned to Providence where he 
has since resided. In May 1870 he engaged in the 
undertaking business, in a small way, and has kept 
on steadily increasing, until at the present time he 
carries one of the largest and best stocks of un- 
dertakers' supplies of any house in the state. He 
has never held any public office. In politics he is 
somewhat independent, usually acting with the 
Democratic party. He is a member of the Brown- 
son Lyceum, a literary society organized in Provi- 
dence about thirty-five years ago, also of Branch 
237 Catholic Knights of America. He has been 
twice married, first in May 1869, to Mary Murry, a 
daughter of Lawrence Murry, who for a number 
of years was connected with Albert Daley's lumber 
yard in Providence, by whom he had one child, 
Amy McMurrough ; his second marriage was in 
September 1892, to Mary C. Sinnott, daughter of the 
late Peter H. Sinnott, clerk a number of years for 
William H. Gree & Co., Providence. 



MOIES, Charles Parmenter, first Mayor of Cen- 
tral Falls, was born in North Providence (now Paw- 
tucket), March 24, 1845, son of Thomas and Susan 
W. (Seymour) Moies. He is a grandson of John 
and Anna (Robinson) Moies of Dorchester, Mass. 
On the maternal side his great-grandfather was 
Capt. John George Curien, who came to this coun- 
try from France with Lafayette, served in the Revo- 
lution, and married Olive Branch of Providence ; 
their daughter Cecilia married George Seymour, 
and their daughter Susan married Thomas Moies 
and was the mother of the subject of this sketch. 
Charles P. Moies received his early education in the 
public schools of Central Falls, and attended Scho- 
field's Commercial College, Providence, in 1864. 
In March 1865 he went to Chicago, III, and entered 
the freight office of the Chicago, Burlington & 
Quincy Railroad, remaining there until September 
1866, when he returned to his home in Central Falls 
and entered the Pawtucket Institution for Savings 
as clerk, and assistant to his father, who filled the 
ofiice of Treasurer. Upon the death of his father, 
in November 1886, Charles was elected Treasurer, 
which office he still holds. In May 1885 he was 
elected Treasurer of the Pawtucket Mutual Fire In- 



surance Company and still holds that office. In 
January 1881 he was elected Treasurer of the Cen- 
tral Falls Fire District, succeeding his uncle, Charles 
Moies, who had held the office twenty-six years, 
and continued in that capacity until March 1895, 
when the district was abolished by the organization 
of the city of Central Falls. He also succeeded 
his father, upon the latter's death in 1886, as Treas- 
urer of Union School Districts One and Two of 
Central Falls, and served until May 1892, when the 
district school system was abolished by the adop- 
tion of the town system by the town of Lincoln. 
He was also elected Treasurer of the town of Lin- 




CHAS. P. MOIES, 

coin upon the death of his father (the former treas- 
urer), and continued in that office until the town 
was made a city, March 18, 1895, when he was 
elected the first Mayor of Central Falls, and held 
the office until January 6, 1S96. In politics he is a 
Republican, and has represented the town of Lincoln 
(1885) in the lower branch of the General Assem- 
bly. Mr. Moies left school at the age of seventeen, 
in September 1862, to enter the army, and served 
during his term of enlistment nine months in 
Company B, Eleventh Regiment Rhode Island 
Volunteers. He is a member of Ballou Post, Grand 
Army of the Republic, and served two years as its 
commander. He is also a member of the order of 
Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, Knights of 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



123 



Honor, Veteran Firemen's Association and the Paw- 
tucket Business Men's Association. He was mar- 
ried, December 19, 1876, to Miss Florence Damon 
Wetherell ; they have one son, Charles P. Moies, Jr. 



MOFFITT, Godfrey, superintendent of planing 
mills, Newport, was born in Killingly, Conn., July 




GODFREY MOFFITT. 

24, 1824, son of Simon and Ruth (Smith) Moffitt. 
His ancestors on both sides are Americans. He 
received his early education in the public schools, 
and served an apprenticeship in woodworking in all 
its branches. He has taken an active interest in 
public affairs both in the city and state. He has 
been a member of the City Council of Newport 
since 1891, and in 1895 was elected a Represen- 
tative in the General Assembly. In politics he is a 
Republican. He married, May i, 1865, Miss Amelia 
C. Spooner ; they have no children. 



Roger Mowry, Edward Inman, John Steere, John 
Whipple, Thomas Harris, Thomas Angell, Thomas 
Arnold, William Wickenden, Richard Scott, Joseph 
Jenckes and Banfield Capron. He received his 
early education in the public schools of Providence 
and of Sheboygan, Wis., and was fitted for college 
in the University Grammar School of Providence. 
He entered Brown University in the class of 1857, 
but was compelled to leave in the junior year on 
account of ill-health. He was out of college four 
years, during which time he was clerk in a large 
commercial house in Buffalo, N. Y., for a part of 
the time, and also taught school in Erie county, N. Y., 
and in Rhode Island. He again entered Brown 
University and graduated in the class of 1861. 
Having adopted the law as a profession he entered 
the office of the Hon. Samuel Currey of Providence 
and studied there until his admission to the Rhode 
Island bar. May 14, 1865, supporting himself by 
teaching school winters. In 1864-65 he was Prin- 




E. C. MOWRY. 



MOWRY, Elisha Capron, attorney-at-law. Provi- 
dence, was born in what is now North Smithfield 
R. I., December 26, 1836, son of Harris Jenckes 
and Fanny Capron (Scott) Mowry. His ancestors 
were English on both sides, and he is descended 
from the following, who came to Rhode Island with 
Roger Williams, or were contemporaries with him : 



cipal of the High School of East Douglass, Mass. 
During the civil war he enlisted and served for 
three months in the Tenth Rhode Island Infantry. 
Since May 1865 he has practiced law continuously 
in Providence, from January 1879 to January 
1884 in company with Richard B. Comstock, under 
the firm name of Mowry & Comstock, and for the 
last three years in company with Livingston Scott, 



124 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



under the firm name of Mowry & Scott. He was 
admitted to the United States Circuit Court bar in 
1866 and to the United States Supreme Court bar in 
1887. He has taken a prominent part in municipal 
and state poHtics. He was a member of the Com- 
mon Council of Providence from 1871 to 1877, of 
the Board of Aldermen from 1878 to 1880, and of 
the School Committee from 1872 to 1881. He was 
elected Senator to the General Assembly from Prov- 
idence in 1880. He was the Democratic candi- 
date for Mayor of Providence in 1880, but was de- 
feated by Hon. William S. Hayward, the Republi- 
cans being largely in the majority in the city at that 
time and united upon Mr. Hayward. He married, 
October 7, 1869, Miss Hannah Richardson, who 
died March 17, 1882. September 18, 1884, he 
married Mrs. Harriet Marble Page ; he has child- 
ren : Fanny Richardson, Benjamin Richardson, 
Emma Augusta, Charles Matteson, Sarah Ross, 
Harris Jenckes, Daza Page, Albert Erastus and 
Elisha Capron Mowry, Jr. 



NICKERSON, Asa Harden, physician, Central 
Falls, was born in South Dennis, Mass., July i, 
1854, son of Asa Whelden and Ruth Ann (Nicker- 
son) Nickerson. He comes of old Pilgrim stock 
and his ancestors on both sides were among the 
first settlers of the town of Cape Cod. He is 
descended in the eighth generation from William 
and Annie (Busbie) Nickerson, who came from 
Norwich, Norfolk county, England, landed in Bos- 
ton in 1637 and settled in Yarmouth, Mass Their 
son Nicholas married Sarah Bassett and died in 
Yarmouth. Their granddaughter Hester married a 
son of the first white child born in Plymouth, Pere- 
grine White. Another granddaughter, Mary, mar- 
ried Simeon Crosby, one of the first settlers of 
Eastham. A grandson, William, married Mary 
Snow and was one of the founders of Chatham. 
Other descendants intermarried with leading fami- 
lies of the Cape and Plymouth. Asa received his 
early education in the public schools of his native 
town and at Mowry & Goff' s School in Providence. 
He graduated from the New Hampton Literary and 
Biblical Institution, New Hampton, in July 1873. 
He is also a graduate of the Harvard Medical 
School, receiving from the University the degree of 
M. D. June 28, 1882. Since that time he has been 
a member of the post-graduate medical schools of 
Boston and New York. While fitting for his pro- 
fession he worked in a drug store and taught a 



grammar school in Harwich, Mass. Dr. Nickerson 
began the practice of medicine and surgery in 
Central Falls, R. I,, in September 1882, where he 
has since remained. In 1895 he was appointed 
Assistant Eye and Ear Surgeon to St. Joseph's 
Hospital, also Externa to the Eye Department of 
the Rhode Island Hospital, Providence. He was a 
trustee of the Union School District, which is now 
the city of Central Falls, in 1886 and 1887, a mem- 
ber of the School Committee of the town of Lin- 
coln from 1887 to 1890, and Superintendent of 
Schools in Lincoln in 1889. He is a member of 
Jenks Lodge A. F. & A. M., Pawtucket Royal Arch 




ASA H, NICKERSON. 

Chapter, Holy Sepulchre Commandery, the Grand 
Lodge of Masons of Rhode Island, Royal Society 
of Good Fellows, Washington Lodge K. of P., Paw- 
tucket Medical Association and the Harvard Medi- 
cal Alumni Association. In politics he is a 
Republican, but has not taken an active part in 
public affairs. He married, October 12, 1887, Miss 
Carrie E. Bunker of Bethlehem, N. H. 



PALMER, William Henry, physician and sur- 
geon. Providence, was born in Woodstock, Conn., 
May 25, 1829, the son of Hezekiah and Lucy 
(Bugbee) Palmer. He is a descendant in the sixth 
generation of Thomas Palmer, who was one of the 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



125 



founders of the town of Rowley, Mass., in April 
1639. His mother was of the fifth generation in 
descent from Edward Bugby, who settled in Rox- 
bury, Mass., in 1634. His ancestors on both sides 
were of the sturdy yeomanry of New England, who 
lived honorably and peaceably, serving their coun- 
try and generation to the best of their ability and 
opportunity. His maternal grandmother was the 
daughter of Dr. Daniel Holmes, of Woodstock, 
Conn., grandfather of Oliver Wendell Holmes, and 
a soldier in the war of the Revolution. His pater- 
nal grandfather was also a soldier of the Revolution. 
Acquiring his early education in the public schools 




WM. H. PALMER. 

and at the Academy in Woodstock, he entered Yale 
College and graduated in the class of 1854 with 
the degree of B. A. Adopting medicine as a pro- 
fession, he studied in the Harvard Medical School, 
and at the University of the state of New York, re- 
ceiving a diploma therefrom in 1859-60. Return- 
ing from the war in 1866, he settled in Providence, 
where he has since been engaged in the practice of 
his profession. He is a member of the American 
Medical Association ; a Fellow of the Rhode Island 
Medical Society and served as President for two 
terms, 1 891-1892 ; a member of the Providence 
Medical Association ; a member and first President 
of the Rhode Island Medico- Legal Society for 
1885 ; a member of the New York Medico-Legal 



Society ; a contributor to various medico-legal and 
medical journals, and is often called in court as an 
expert on medico-legal questions. He served in 
the war of the Rebellion, was commissioned August 
26, 1 86 1, Surgeon and Major of the Third New 
York Volunteer Cavalry by Governor Morgan, and 
served three years in the field. On April 10, 1865, 
contracting as Acting Staff Surgeon, U. S. A., he 
served as Surgeon in charge of the hospitals in and 
about Richmond, Va., until September 1866. He 
has been a member of the Grand Army of the Re- 
public since 1867 ; was Assistant Adjutant-General 
of the Department of Rhode Island for two years, 
and Surgeon for two years ; is a Companion of the 
Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United 
States, and a member and first President of the 
United States Veteran Volunteers' Association. In 
1876 he was appointed acting Surgeon to the Provi- 
dence Police Force and continued in service until 
1 89 1, when he was elected PoHce Surgeon, and is 
still serving in said office. In June 1884 he was 
appointed by the Governor of Rhode Island a Med- 
ical Examiner for District Number Ten, county of 
Providence, and served for six years ; was reap- 
pointed in 1 89 1, and is still serving. On June 10, 
1872, he was elected by the City Council, Deputy 
Superintendent of Health for the city of Providence, 
and a Coroner from 1875 to 1884, inclusive. He is 
a member of Corinthian Lodge A. F. & A. M., of 
Providence Lodge K. of H., and of other beneficial 
societies. In politics he was an Abolitionist before 
and during the war, and since has been a Republi- 
can. In October 1862 he married Fanny Purdy, 
author, of New York city ; they have two children : 
Henrietta Raymer and Granville Ernest Palmer. 



PECK, Samuel Luther, member of the firm 
of Arnold, Peck & Co., importers, jobbers and com- 
mission merchants in chemicals, drugs and dye- 
stuffs. Providence, New York and Boston, was born 
in Warren, R. I., December 17, 1845, the son of 
James M. and Elizabeth (Luther) Peck. He was 
educated at the Warren high school and at Bryant, 
Stratton and Mason's Commercial College. His 
first occupation was as clerk for Charles E. Boon 
& Co., from 1864 to 1869, Then he became book- 
keeper for B. B. & R. Knight until 1872, and was 
salesman for Butts & Mason until 1874, when he 
entered the firm of Mason, Chapin & Co., which in 
1896 was succeeded by the present firm. He has 
always held his residence in Warren, where he has 



126 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



been Assessor of Taxes three years, was first Chair- 
man of Standing Committee of the George Hail 
Free Library, was Superintendent of the Methodist 
Episcopal Sunday School for ten years, and Master 
of Washington Lodge A. F. & A. M. No. 3 for one 
year. He has also been Vice-President of the New 
England Paint and Oil Club, and is a member of the 
Providence Athletic Association, Union Club, Rhode 
Island Yacht Club and Southern Press Club. He is 
now Vice-President of the National Hope Bank, 
and serving his second term as Representative to 




SAMUEL L. PECK. 

the General Assembly. In politics he is a Republi- 
can. He married, June 23, 1870, Miss Esther Alice 
Gardner ; they lost their only child, Howard 
Gardner, at the age of three years and nine months. 



PECKHAM, Thomas Clarke, woolen manu- 
facturer, Coventry, was born in Westerly, R. I., 
December 21, 1836, son of Daniel and Olive 
(Kenyon) Peckham. His education was acquired 
in the common schools, and at an early age he de- 
voted himself to woolen manufacturing, in which he 
has been engaged continuously from 1861 to the 
present time. He was elected to the Rhode Island 
House of Representatives in 1875 and served in 
that body two years, then served as State Senator 
three years, and was again chosen Representative 



in 1894, which office he now holds. He was also 
elected and served as delegate to the Republican 
National Convention of 1884 in Chicago, when 
James G. Blaine was nominated for president of the 




THOS. C. PECKHAM. 

United States. He has been a Free Mason for 
more than thirty years, and is a member of Man- 
chester Lodge of Coventry. He is also a member 
of the Pomham Club of Providence. In politics he 
is a Republican. Mr. Peckham was married, 
March 7, 1858, to Miss Mar}-^ Vaughn Reynolds; 
they have had eleven children —two sons and nine 
daughters : Daniel W., Hannah A. F., Mary L., 
Grace G., Hattie V., Amy G., Susie E., Isabella B., 
Bertha V., Bertha E., and Charles H. Peckham. 
Of these one son and five daughters are now living, 
viz., Hannah A. F , Grace G., Hattie V., Amy G., 
Isabella B. and Charles H. Peckham. 



PRICE, Walter, druggist, Westerly, was born 
in Plainfield, Conn., June 18, 1845, the eldest of 
three children. His father was a native of Wales 
and his mother of Bristol, England ; they came to 
America in 1838. He was educated in the public 
schools, leaving school at the age of sixteen to enlist 
in the war of the Rebellion. He served three years 
in the army, and after receiving an honorable dis- 
charge returned to his home, then in Mystic, Conn., 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



127 



where new duties and responsibilities awaited him, 
his father and mother having died during his 
absence. On his return he found it necessary to 
obtain immediate employment of some kind, with- 
out waiting for a choice in entering upon a career, 




WALTER PRICE. 

in order to educate his two younger brothers. He 
obtained a position as purser of a steamship running 
to Southern ports and later to the West Indies, 
which berth he held until he was made Agent of the 
Steamship Company and located at Samana Bay, 
Santo Domingo, W. I. This was in 1870, and dur- 
ing that period, in connection with his business as 
steamship agent, he was naval storekeeper for the 
United States, and also acted as commercial agent 
for our government. He was at Samana Bay during 
all the period of agitation concerning the proposed 
annexation of the island to this country. Mr. Price 
returned to the United States in the fall of 1874 and 
engaged in the drug business at Westerly, R. I., 
which business he has carried on at Nos. 26 and 27 
Main street continuously for the past twenty-one 
years. In politics he has always been a Republican 
— is serving his second term as Town Councilman 
of Westerly, also his second year as a member of the 
Republican Town Committee, and this year was 
elected a member of the General Assembly. He is 
in no sense a club or society man, having led too 
active a business life to find time for such form of 



recreation ; he is a member of the Pawcatuck 
Seventh-Day Baptist Church, Hancock Post G. A. 
R., and the Westerly Business Men's Association. 
His life has been a busy one, with many severe 
struggles through early years of poverty and privation, 
until now he is entering upon his second half-cen- 
tury with the satisfaction of having reached a point 
of comparative ease and competence. Mr. Price 
was twice married : October 24, 1872, to Miss Laura 
Adelaide Greenman, and February 14, 1877, to Lucia 
Annette Greenman. His first wife and second wife 
were sisters, daughters of the late George Greenman 
of Mystic, Conn., for more than fifty years a noted 
shipbuilder of that place. His first wife died at 
Samana Bay, Santo Domingo, W. I., March 17, 1874, 
leaving no children. Four children were the fruit 
of his second marriage : Abby C, Fanny Annette, 
Walter Smith and Catherine Greenman Price, all 
now living except the firstborn, who died January 
10, 1882. 



READ, Harwood Edwards, Chief of Police of 
Newport, was born in Newport, July 28, 1838, 




HARWOOD E. READ. 

the sonjof Eleazer J. and Mary Ann Tilley (Cook) 
Read. His father was a descendant of John Read 
of Cornwall, England, who was an of^cer in Crom- 
well's army, and upon the restoration of Charles II. 
fled to America and settled in Providence. His 



128 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



mother's ancestors came from Exeter, Devonshire, 
England, in 1638, and settled in Newport. Of their 
descendants many were officers and soldiers in the 
early wars of the colonies, of the Revolution and 
the war of the Rebellion. He received his early 
education in the public schools of Newport. He 
entered business at an early age, first as a boy and 
clerk in a grocery store, and then learned and 
worked at the printer's trade. He has been 
honored by many offices of trust and importance by 
his fellow citizens. He was City Marshal of New- 
port in 1871-72, and from 1876 to 1881. He was 
Overseer of the Poor in 1871-72. He has been 
Chief of Police from 1893 to the present time. He 
was a member of the Common Council from 1886 
to 1889, and President of that body in 1888-89. 
He was License Commissioner from 1889 to 189 1. 
He is a member of the Second Baptist Church and 
treasurer of the corporation. He is a Past Noble 
Grand of R. I. Lodge, I. O. O. F., Past Chief Patri- 
arch of Aquidneck Encampment, and Past Grand 
Chancellor of Redwood Lodge K. of P. In politics 
he is a Republican and for many years a member of 
the City Committee from Ward 3, and also a mem- 
ber of the State Central Committee. He married, 
December 25, 1864, Miss Amanda M. Crosby, who 
died November 4, 1888; they had three children: 
Georgiana Shaw, Bessie Murphy and Harwood E.j 
Jr. He married, October i, 1890, Miss Sarah 
Weeden Lee. 

REMINGTON, John Alfred, physician and 
surgeon, Central Falls, was born in Coventry, R. I , 
November 2, 1867, son of Albert D. and Caroline 
M. (Knight) Remington. He comes of old Colo- 
nial stock, being connected with some of the oldest 
families in Rhode Island — the Remingtons, 
Knights, Potters, Coles, Gardiners, Mattesons, 
Watermans and others. He is a descendant of 
James Cole of Plymouth, who was the first occupier 
of the hill back of Plymouth Rock which bears his 
name. He is also a descendant of Thomas Rem- 
ington of Prudence Island, who fled to the main- 
land when the British were coming up Narragansett 
Bay in the war of the Revolution ; " Prudence Tom," 
as he was called, became one of the minute men 
who patrolled the shore of Narragansett Bay watch- 
ing for the British. He received his early education 
in the district schools of Quidnick, in the town of 
Coventry, R. I., until thirteen years of age, and 
afterwards attended a private school in Providence 
for a year. He adopted medicine as a profession 



and studied two and a half years in the oflfice of the 
late Dr. James E. Tobey of Central Falls, whom he 
succeeded in practice. He studied for three years 
in the Bellevue Hospital of New York City, and 
graduated March 30, 1891, afterward locating in 
Central Falls, where he has since remained. At the 
last election he received the vote of the Democratic 
members of the City Council for City Physician. 
He is a member of the Pawtucket Medical Associa- 
tion, of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, at 
present being Past Master Workman and Repre- 
sentative to the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts for 




J. A. REMINGTON. 

one year, of the Knights of Pythias, A. F. & A. 
Masons, of the American Order of Druids, and the 
dramatic order of the Knights of Kohassen ; also 
associate member of the Veteran Firemen's Associa- 
tion of Central Falls. In politics he is a Democrat, 
and a member of the John W. Davis Club of Cen- 
tral Falls. He is unmarried. 



ROELKER, William Greene, counsellor-at-law, 
Warwick, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, June 12, 
1854, the son of Dr. Frederic and Catherine Ray 
(Greene) Roelker. Frederic Roelker became an 
American citizen in 1837, coming from the kingdom 
of Hanover, where he had succeeded his father as 
Rector and Master of a great public foundation 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



129 



school in his native city. On his mother's side the 
subject of this sketch is descended from Colonial 
and Revolutionary ancestry; his great-great-grand- 
father William Greene was Governor of Rhode Isl- 
and during most of the period of the Revolution. 




W, G. ROELKER. 

He received his early education in private classical 
schools in Cincinnati, and went to Europe in 1867, 
where he pursued his studies in the College of 
Freiburg, the University of Berlin, the Academy of 
Geneva and other prominent educational institu- 
tions, until 1873. On his return to this country he 
adopted the law as his profession and studied in 
the Harvard Law School, graduating with the degree 
of LL.B. in 1875. He then entered as a student 
the office of Browne & Van Slyck, Providence, and 
was admitted to the Rhode Island bar in 1876. 
He formed a co-partnership with Francis W. Miner, 
one of the leading lawyers of the state, and since the 
retirement of Mr. Miner from active business has 
successfully managed a large practice, and is coun- 
sel for many large concerns. He was elected a 
Representative to the General Assembly in 1877, 
and was a Senator from Warwick in 1894 and 1895. 
He was Chairman of the Commission to revise the 
General Statutes of Rhode Island from 1890-95, a 
Presidental Elector on the Republican ticket in 
1892 and Chairman of the Rhode Island delegation 



in the Republican National Convention at Minne- 
apolis in 1892. In 1894 he was favorably mentioned 
as a candidate for United States Senator, but with- 
drew his name in a letter recommending Hon. 
George Peabody Wetmore. He is a member of the 
American Bar Association, Rhode Island Historical 
Society, Sons of the American Revolution and most 
of the leading social clubs of Providence as well as 
of others in New York and Washington. He was 
married, October 19, 1880, to Miss Ella Jenckes, 
daughter of Hon. Thomas A. Jenckes, the distin- 
guished advocate of civil service reform, lawyer and 
statesman. They have had four children : William 
Greene, Thomas Jenckes (deceased), Eleanor 
Jenckes and Edith Goddard Roelker. 



SACK, August Albert, one of the leading man- 
ufacturers of Rhode Island, is a native of Germany, 
where he was born August 16, 1843. After acquir- 
ing a liberal education and gaining a thorough 
knowledge of all the details of woolen manufactur- 




A. ALBERT SACK. 

ing in his native country, he came to America in 
1867. He was first employed as designer by the 
Harris Woolen Company of Woonsocket, R. I., and 
later served in a similar capacity in the Everett 
Mills at Lawrence, Mass., and the Bates Mills at 



I30 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Lewiston, Me. This was followed by a brief service 
in the commission house of Leland, Allen & Bates, 
Boston, where he had full supervision of all the 
woolen mills operated by this firm. In 1873 he 
came to Providence as superintendent of the 
worsted mill of Owen & Clark. In 1879 he pur- 
chased the business of Mr. Owen, incorporated as 
the Geneva Worsted Mill. After successfully man- 
aging it until May 1884 he sold his interest in this 
enterprise. He then organized the Lymansville 
Company and under his personal direction built the 
Lymansville Mills, which are acknowledged to be 
the most modern, best equipped and managed 
worsted mills in the country. From the inception 
of the enterprise to the present time Mr. Sack as 
Treasurer of the company has been the dominating 
force in the management, and to his thorough 
knowledge of the business, his untiring energy, 
financial ability and keen business judgment, its 
notable success can be largely ascribed. The prod- 
uct consists of worsted yarns and worsted goods ; 
the mills employ four hundred and fifty persons, 
and about ten thousand pounds of wool is con- 
sumed daily. Mr. Sack is also interested in various 
other cotton and woolen mills, but his principal at- 
tention is directed to the management of the 
Lymansville Company. He is a man of unusual 
executive ability and untiring industry, and despite 
his careful supervision of extensive business inter- 
ests, he has managed to find time for mental culti- 
vation and improvement, and is well posted as to 
the progress of affairs in the political and literary 
worlds. He is a Republican in politics, and is a 
thorough believer in the wisdom of reciprocity and 
a protective tariff in the interest of home manufac- 
tures, holding that labor and the material progress 
of the country would be best advanced by this 
policy. Mr. Sack resides in Providence, and is a 
member of various clubs and societies, but has 
never taken a prominent part in them, or in public 
life, finding his chief pleasures after the close of 
the day's business within his home circle. He was 
married, September 25, 1879, ^^ Miss Alice R. 
Davis, eldest daughter of the late George L. Davis, 
senior member of the Davis & Furber Machine 
Company of North Andover, Mass. ; they have two 
sons : George D. and A. Albert Sack, Jr. 



Providence, born February 26, 1840, son of Adnah 
and Eliza (Adams) Sackett. He is a descendant 
in the seventh generation of Simon Sackett, who 
came to America from the Isle of Ely, Cambridge- 
shire, England, in 1628. He received his early 
education at Mount Pleasant Academy, Amherst, 
Mass., and Phillips Academy, Exeter, N. H., grad- 
uated at Brown University, class of 1861, and went 
from college into the army at the first call of Pres- 
ident Lincoln for volunteers in 1861. He served 
as Second Lieutenant and afterwards First Lieuten- 
ant of Battery C, First Rhode Island Light Artillery, 
and at different times was in command of the 




SACKETT, Frkderic Mosf.lev, Adjutant-Gen- 
eral of the State of Rhode Island, is a native of 



F. M. SACKETT. 

battery. He was severely wounded at the battle of 
Chancellorsville. Following his retirement from 
the army he engaged in woolen manufacturing 
from 1864 to 1882, and from 1882 to 1892 was 
Treasurer of the Richmond Paper Company. He 
was appointed Adjutant-General of the State, No- 
vember 4, 1895. Mr. Sackett is a member of the 
Hope Club of Providence and the University Club 
of New York, and is also a member of the military 
order of the Loyal Legion. He was married, 
November 15, 1866, to Miss Emma Louisa Paine, 
and has four children : Fred M., Jr., Elizabeth 
Paine, Henry Weston and Franklin Page Sackett. 
He resides in Providence. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



131 



SAN SOUCI, Joseph Octave, of Providence, 
head of the large retail shoe and department busi- 
ness of J. O. San Souci & Co., was born in Stukely, 
Province of Quebec, Canada, July 27, 1855, son of 
Euzebe and Louise (Couette) San Souci. His 
father enlisted in the First Vermont Cavalry in 1861, 
and was killed in action on July 3, 1863. Joseph 
was eight years old at the time of his father's death. 
He had four sisters older and three brothers younger 
than himself, besides an elder brother who enlisted 
in the same company as his father, at the age of six- 
teen. He attended the public schools at St. Albans, 
Vermont, until sixteen years of age, and then, as his 
family were poor, he was obHged to enter upon the 
active duties of life. He entered, in 187 1, the store 
of George S. Eddy, Greenfield, Mass., as clerk^ 
selling drygoods and boots and shoes, and later was 
engaged with M, S. Fellows in the same place. In 
1875 he came to Providence and was employed by 
E. J. Beane at Olneyville, the manufacturing suburb 
of the city, in the shoe business as salesman. When 
a boy at school he read in some paper or magazine 
a statement said to have been made by A. T. Stewart, 
the great drygoods merchant, something as follows : 
" If a young man will economize and save one thou- 
sand dollars, he will find it comparatively easy to 
make money afterwards; the hard work comes in 
getting the first thousand." He never forgot it, and 
determined at the start to save this amount as soon 
as possible. His earnings were very small at first, 
only five dollars a week the first year ; but he perse- 
vered, and in eight years was the proud possessor of 
eight hundred dollars, when an opportunity pre- 
sented itself for him to go into business. His em- 
ployer opened a large shoe store in the centre of the 
city, and was desirous of disposing of the Olneyville 
store. This was the chance of a lifetime for Joseph, 
and he grasped it. He succeeded in getting two other 
young men, S. C. Jameson and Asa M. Pinkham, to 
combine their small capital with his, and they pur- 
chased the store and started it under the name of 
Jameson, San Souci & Co., making a success from 
the start. After five years he had purchased the 
interests of both partners and taken into partner- 
ship his younger brother, F. C. San Souci, the firm 
name being changed to J. O. San Souci & Company. 
In a few years, finding that they had more money 
than was needed in their business, they opened 
another store in Olneyville, and in 1885 bought the 
shoe store of W. H. Bigelow at Atdeboro, Mass., 
giving one of their salesmen, T. E. McCaffrey, a half 
interest. In 1887 they bought the shoe business of 



Fowler & San Souci at Hartford, Conn., a firm of 
which another brother, E. J. San Souci, was a mem- 
ber, and who now was taken into the firm of J. O. 
Souci & Company. Two years later the Boston 
Shoe Store, in Westminster Street, was sold at 
auction by the receiver, and they bid it in at 
$17,050. They then offered their Hartford store 
for sale, and sold it the following week at a good 
bonus. Their greatest venture, and what they believe 
is to be their most successful one, is their elegant 
department store in Olneyville Square, where they 
sell drygoods, cloaks, shoes, etc. It was opened 
for business in November 1892, and is one of the 




/ 



J. O. SAN SOUCI. 

handsonaest stores to be found in New England. 
Mr. San Souci is entering upon his sixth year as a 
member of the School Committee of Providence, 
and has just finished his second year as a Common 
Councilman, declining re-election on account of the 
pressure of his private business. He is a member of 
various fraternal societies, including the American 
Order of Foresters and Knights of Sherwood, 
Ancient Order United Workmen, Royal Society of 
Good Fellows, Royal Arcanum and Knights of 
Columbus. He was married, June 15, 1890, to Miss 
Sarah G. Lynch of Providence ; they have four 
children : Paul, aged nine ; George H., aged seven; 
Joseph O., Jr., aged five ; and Sadie L. San Souci, 
aged two years. 



132 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



SAYLES, Albert Leprelett, manufacturer, 
Pascoag, was born in Burrillville, R. I., August 29, 
1826, son of Harden and Laura (Wood) Sayles. 
He is descended from an old and well-known Rhode 
Island family, his ancestor, John Sayles, having 



they have had four children : Edgar Franklin 
(deceased), Ellen Maria, Albert Hardin and Fred 
Lincoln Sayles. 




A. L. SAYLES. 

married Mary, the daughter of Roger Williams. 
He received his early education in the public 
schools, and commenced his training as a manu- 
facturer in the mill of his father and in that of D. 
S. Whipple, who were manufacturers of woolen 
goods in Burrillville. He commenced business for 
himself in connection with his father as early as 
1854, and has continued in it ever since, controlling 
and managing some large and successful establish- 
ments. He has refused all political office, except 
that of delegate to the Republican National Con- 
vention held in Chicago in 1888. He is one of 
the Commissioners to erect a new State House in 
Providence ; is one of the promoters and a Director 
of the Providence & Springfield Railroad ; a Director 
of the Pascoag National Bank ; President and Di- 
rector of the Third National Bank of Providence, 
and a Director of the American and Enterprise 
Mutual Fire Insurance Companies. Mr. Sayles has 
taken an active interest in religious affairs, and 
was for many years President and Treasurer of the 
Pascoag Freewill Baptist Society. He married, 
December i, 1852, Miss Fannie Jane Warner; 



SHEPARD, John, Jr., drygoods merchant, 
Providence, was born January 2, 1857, in Boston, 
Mass., the son of John and Susan Annie (Bagley) 
Shepard. His father is an eminent and successful 
merchant in Boston. He received his early educa- 
tion in the public schools of Boston, graduated from 
the English High School in 1874, and started in 
business for himself at the age of twenty-three in a 
store occupying a small portion of the present site 
on Westminster street. Providence. Since that 
time the business has grown in remarkable propor- 
tions, and he now owns the new and elegant build- 
ing, Nos. 259 to 273 Westminster street, which 
has been built by him as various enlargements be- 
came necessary. He has no partner, all the con- 
trol of the business emanating from one head and 
under a thorough and efficient system. In addition 
to his drygoods business he is President of the 




JOHN SHEPARD, JR. 

Consolidated Car Fender Company. He has been 
President of the Rhode Island Business Men's As- 
sociation and of the Narragansett Boat Club, and 
is now Treasurer of the Providence Athletic Asso- 
ciation. Mr. Shepard has not taken an active in- 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



133 



terest in politics or public life. He married, Octo- 
ber 22, 1884, Miss Flora E., daughter of Gen. A. P. 
Martin of Boston ; they have three children : John, 
3d, Edward P. and Robert Ferguson Shepard. 



SHOVE, Isaac, Secretary of the Pawtucket 
Mutual Fire Insurance Company tor nearly forty 
years, was born in Smithiield (now Woonsocket)> 
R. I., October 4, 1823, son of Marvel and Lydia 
(Fish) Shove. The ancestor of the Shove family in 
this country was the Rev. George Shove, the third 
minister of Taunton, Mass., whose wife was Hope- 




ISAAC SHOVE. 

still Newman, daughter of Rev. Samuel Newman, 
one of the founders of Rehoboth; she died in 1674, 
and from them the Shoves, few in number, have de- 
scended. Isaac's father was a manufacturer at the 
Globe Mill; his mother died during his infancy, 
and he went to Hve with his grandfather, Josiah 
Shove, in Mendon (now Blackstone), Mass. He 
attended the district school, and about 1833 went 
to the boarding school of Thomas Fry in Bolton, 
Worcester county, Mass., where he was fellow 
schoolmate with Samuel Foss, for many years editor 
of the Woonsocket Patriot. At the age of fourteen 
he went to live with an uncle in the town of 
Palmyra, Wayne county, N. Y., where he worked on 
the farm. In 1846 he returned East and lived in 



Seekonk, Mass., until 1851, when he came to Paw- 
tucket, Mass., and obtained employment as a clerk. 
In 1856 he was elected Secretary of the Pawtucket 
Mutual Fire Insurance Company, which office he 
still fills, having held it for a period of nearly forty 
years. In 1857-58-59 Mr. Shove was on the board 
of Selectmen of Pawtucket, and in i860 he was ap- 
pointed by Governor Banks a Trial Justice with 
jurisdiction over Pawtucket, Seekonk and Rehoboth. 
In 1862 Pawtucket was annexed to Rhode Island, 
and he was elected Town Clerk and held the office 
three years. He was elected a member of the 
House of Representatives in 1865 and again in 
1866, and in 1865 was elected by the General As- 
sembly a member of the Court of Magistrates, with 
jurisdiction over Pawtucket, North Providence and 
Smithfield — an office which under different names 
he has held, with the exception of two years, up to 
the present time, about thirty-three years. In 
1874, when the town of North Providence was 
divided and a portion consolidated with Pawtucket, 
Mr. Shove was again elected to the General Assem- 
bly, and yet again in 188 r. In 1877 and in 1888 
he was President of the Town Council of Pawtucket, 
subsequently served as Sewer Commissioner, and 
has held various offices in town and city. In poli- 
tics he is a Republican. 



SIMMONS, George Washington, undertaker, 
Bristol, was born in Bristol, March 9, 1833, son of 
Smith B. and Sarah B. (Cartee) Simmons. He is a 
grandson of Comfort Simmons, and his great-great- 
grandfather, Thomas Simmons, who was a Baptist 
clergyman, preached a sermon when one hundred 
years old, and lived to the age of one hundred 
and five years. His maternal grandfather, Ben- 
jamin Cartee, was lost at sea in 1833 ; and his great- 
grandfather, Stephen Talbee, was a Revolutionary 
soldier, born in 175 1 and died in 1842 at the age of 
ninety-one. George Washington Simmons was 
educated in the public schools of his native town, 
and at the age of sixteen, in 1849, was apprenticed 
to learn the cabinet-making trade of the late John 
S. Weeden, serving four years' apprenticeship and 
continuing the trade with him for twenty years. In 
1869 he commenced business for himself as a pro- 
fessional undertaker and still continues in that pro- 
fession. Mr. Simmons was a member of the fire 
department of the town of Bristol for twenty-one 
years, holding the office of foreman of the King 
Philip hand-engine in 1869, and has served two 



134 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



years as assistant engineer on the board of engineers 
of the department. He served in the war of the 
RebelHon as Sergeant of Company E, Twelfth Rhode 
Island Volunteers, and was wounded at Fredericks- 
burg, December 13, 1862. He is also a veteran of 
Bristol Train of Artillery. He is a member of St. 
Albans Lodge of Masons since 1864, and of United 
Brothers Lodge of Odd Fellows from 1870; a mem- 
ber and Past Chief Patriarch of Wampanoag En- 
campment ; Past Ensign and Lieutenant of Canton 
Miller, Patriarchs Militant ; and a member of Burn- 
side Lodge Knights of Pythias and Babbitt Post 
Grand Army of the Republic. In politics he is a 




GEO. W. SIMMONS. 

Republican, and has been a Representative to the 
General Assembly since May 1891. He was mar- 
ried, October 4, 1855, to Miss Elizabeth R. Allen; 
they have three children : Amy E., Emma E. and 
Mary R. Simmons. 



SLATER, Alpheus Brayton, General Manager 
and Director of the Providence Gas Company, was 
born in Warwick, R. I., November 26, 1832, son of 
Brayton and Patience (Millard) Slater. His family 
is that of the well-known and respected Slaters of 
Killingly, Conn., and his maternal grandfather was 
Charles Millard of Warwick. He received his 
preparatory education in the public schools of 



Newburyport, Mass., and East Killingly, Conn., 
and afterwards attended Srnithville Seminary at 
North Scituate and the Conference Seminary at East 
Greenwich. In September 1853, when not quite 
twenty-one, he entered the service of the Provi- 
dence Gas Company, and in December 1858, was 
elected Chief Clerk, in March 1869 was elected 
Assistant Treasurer, and in February 1870 he was 
made Director, Treasurer and Secretary, with the 
additional duties of General Manager, which po- 
sition he has held continuously to the present time. 
The great financial and mechanical success of the 
corporation is largely due to his practical ability 
and energy. He is the only one now remaining 
of the organization as it existed when he entered 
the service. He has taken an active part in the 
organization and service of the Association for the 
Development and Improvement of Gas Lighting, 
is a member of the New England Association of 
Gas Engineers and served as its President for two 
years, and is also a member of the New England 
Guild of Gas Managers, of which he served as 
Secretary from its organization until he was elected 
its President in 1885, which position he held for 
two years. He is 'also a member of the Society of 
Gas Lighting of New York, an honorary member of 
the Western Gas Association, and a member of the 
American Gas Light Association, in which he has 
served on the Finance and Executive Committees, 
and was elected its President in 1888 at the meeting 
held in Toronto. Mr. Slater has always carefully 
avoided holding any public oflfice not connected with 
the business. He is a member of the Squantum 
Club and of the Providence Athletic Association. 
In politics he is a Republican. He married, June 
25, 1855, Miss Ruth Matthews of East Killingly, 
Conn. ; they have three children : Lora R., Alpheus 
B. and Howard C. Slater. 



SMITH, Irving M.wr.w, President of the Provi- 
dence Business Men's Association at the time of his 
death, was born at Rumstick, in Barrington, R. I., 
July 15, 1852, and died December i, 1895. He 
was the son of Nathaniel Church and Sally (Bowen) 
Smith, and descended from Italian and English 
ancestry. With a good education preparatory for 
business, he commenced his active career as a lad 
in the wholesale department of George L. Claflin <.^ 
Co., Providence, where his brother Nathaniel had 
preceded him in a most successful business experi- 
ence. He remained with this house until he formed 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



135 






V^/^...:-^^ 



136 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



a partnership to carry on the drug business under 
the firm name of Kenyon, Smith & Co., on Ex- 
change Place. After a few years at this location he 
returned to the house of George L. Claflin & Co., 
where he remained until about July 1895, when he 
was induced to give up his drug business to become 
the Secretary and Treasurer of the Inter-State Pe- 
troleum Company, which position he held at the 
time of his death. Mr. Smith inherited a genial 
nature, an active disposition and a sanguine tem- 
perament. He needed no stimulus for work, for his 
busy mind was full of plans for himself and others, 
which no obstacles could hinder and no discourage- 
ments or counter influence check. He was open- 
hearted, possessed no arts of concealment or of 
private scheming so that his life, character and 
purposes were an open book, known and read of all. 
He was constantly thoughtful for the good name of 
his native town, and was always on the alert to do 
something to add to its attractions. Arbor day in 
Rhode Island owes its existence to Mr. Smith's 
labors, and the first celebration of the day was held 
in Barrington under his direction. He was inter- 
ested among the foremost in the organization of 
improvement associations, and the Barrington Rural 
Improvement Association and the Rhode Island 
Society owe their present successful operations 
largely to his labors. He was the efficient Presi- 
dent of both of these bodies, as well as of the 
Providence Business Men's Association, of which he 
was a charter meinber. Mr. Smith was ever lavish 
of time, strength and enthusiastic interest for the 
good of his fellows, and a shortened life is the price 
paid for excessive energy spent in public and private 
service in the town, in the church at Barrington, in 
business life, in associational work and in all other 
pursuits which he followed with such diligence and 
success. He was married, April 12, 1887, to Carrie 
Wakeman Ketchum, who survives him ; they had 
two children : Kenneth Valentine and Nathalie 
Church Smith. 



SMITH, Robert Morton, physician and sur- 
geon, River Point, was born in Maitland, near 
Newport, Nova Scotia, October 12, 1863, the son 
of Bowden and Elizabeth (Faulkner) Smith. He is 
descended from New England ancestry, who settled 
in Hants County, Nova Scotia, prior to the American 
Revolution. His father's ancestors came from near 
Newport, R. I., and founded the town of Newport, 
Nova Scotia. He received his early education in 



the public schools and at the Provincial Normal 
School and Pictou Academy. He adopted med- 
icine as a profession, graduated from the College of 
Physicians and Surgeons of Baltimore, Md., in 1889, 
served as clinical assistant in the City Hospital of 
Baltimore and practiced in New Jersey for a short 
time. He settled at River Point, R. I., in 1890, 
where he has since remained in the enjoyment of 
a lucrative practice. Dr. Smith is a member of 
Washington Lodge I. O. O. F., of Warwick Lodge 




R. MORTON SMITH. 

A. F. & A. M. of Phenix, R. I., of Landmark 
Chapter, of Providence Council, of Calvary Com- 
mandery, and of Palestine Temple A. A. O. N. M. 
S. He married, in April 1892, Miss Lizzie A., 
daughter of Arnold and Lizzie (Taylor) Parker. 



SMITH, Thomas Joseph, M. D., Valley Falls, 
was born in Adams, Massachusetts, April 18, 1859, 
son of Michael and Bridget (Malone) Smith, of 
Irish ancestry. His early education was obtained 
in the public schools, after which he was employed 
in a cotton mill until the age of seventeen, when he 
left to finish his studies. He attended La Salle 
Academy in Providence, West Farnham College in 
the Province of Quebec, the University of Ottawa 
(Canada), and the College of Physicians and Sur- 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



137 



geons at Baltimore, Maryland, graduating from the 
last-named institution March 4, 1884. Since grad- 
uation he has practiced medicine in the town of 
Cumberland. He has visited Europe three times 
since 1887, for the purpose of gaining experience 
in the different hospitals, and has enjoyed a success- 
ful professional career. Dr. Smith has served as 
member of the School Committee three years, and 
as Chairman of the Board of Tax Assessors for one 
year. He is a member of the Rhode Island State 
Medical Society, the Providence Medical Associa- 
tion, and the Megantic Fish and Game Club. In 
politics he is an active Democrat, and has been a 




T, J. SMITH. 

member of the Democratic State Central Com- 
mittee from Cumberland for four years. He was 
married, July 3, 1888, to Miss Mary Welsh of Clay- 
ton Mount (near Manchester), England ; they have 
four children : Thomas Charles Russell, Mary 
Beatrice, Helen Welsh and Brenda Angela Smith. 



STEARNS, Henry Augusitjs, manufacturer, Vice- 
President of the Union Wadding Company, Paw- 
tucket, and Lieutenant-Governor of Rhode Island 
in 1891-92, was born in Billerica, Mass., October 
23, 1825, son of Abnerand Anna (Russell) Stearns. 
His mother was a daughter of Thomas Russell of 
West Cambridge, Mass. He is a direct descendant 



of Isaac Stearns, who came to this country in 1630 
with Governor Winthrop, and settled in Watertown, 
near Mount Auburn, Mass. For more than two 
centuries the Stearns name has been a leading one 
in Billerica and the vicinity thereof. Abner Stearns, 
Henry's father, was a man of great force of charac- 
ter and an inventor of more than local reputation. 
Abner was about nine years old at the opening of 
the Revolution. He and his brother Solomon, a 
lad of eighteen, sleeping side by side, were awakened 
at an early hour on April 19, 1775, by their father. 
Lieutenant Edward Stearns, who announced that 
the British were coming. The Lieutenant and his 
son Solomon marched that day with the Bedford 
militia to Concord, where they acquitted themselves 
with great credit in the memorable Concord fight. 
Captain Wilson of the Bedford militia having been 
killed. Lieutenant Stearns was placed in command 
of the Bedford troop during the latter part of the 
day, and thus it is that the subject of this sketch 
enjoys the distinction of having had his own uncle 
a leading participant in the first battle of the Rev- 
olution. The death of his parents occurred when 
he was about twelve years old. His early education 
was acquired in the public schools, supplemented 
by two years at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. 
At the age of twenty he went West, and settled 
for a time in Cincinnati, where he engaged in the 
manufacture of cotton wadding. In the spring of 
1850, his mill having been twice destroyed by fire, 
he started for California via the Isthmus of Panama. 
From the Isthmus he took passage for San Francisco 
on an old whaling vessel, ill-conditioned, ill-fitted 
and overcrowded, and after four months of tossing 
about on the Pacific and intense suffering from lack 
of food and water, he finally reached his destination. 
He opened the first steam laundry in California, 
and also ran the first steam ferry between San 
Francisco and what is now the city of Oakland. 
After several years of Cahfornia life he returned 
East, and in 1857 engaged in business in Buffalo, 
N. Y., where for a time he was roommate and friend 
of a young lawyer, Grover Cleveland, now President 
of the United States. The financial crisis of 1858 
swept away his property in the general disaster 
which it precipitated upon most young business 
enterprises and many of long standing throughout 
the country, and he moved, with his young wife and 
with courage undaunted, to Illinois, and started 
anew to build up his fortunes. While in that state 
he formed a friendly acquaintance with another 
lawyer, of some local reputation, and in i860, having 



138 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



planned to engage in manufacturing in Rhode Island, 
but uncertain whether to go into business at that 
time of political and business agitation, in his per- 
plexity he consulted his lawyer friend, Abraham 
Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln advised him to carry out his 




H. A. STEARNS. 

plans, stating that he expected the war clouds would 
soon blow over. Accordingly Mr. Stearns went to 
Pawtucket, R. L, and in conjunction with Darius 
Goff began the manufacture of cotton wadding. 
The inventive genius inherited from his father was 
now brought into full play ; many of his inventions 
have been utilized in the mill of the Union Wadding 
Company, of which he is Vice-President and Super- 
intendent, and to-day this company is one of the 
largest manufacturers of wadding in the world. Mr. 
Stearns resides in Central Falls, and has been many 
times honored by his fellow-townsmen. He is a 
Republican in politics. For a number of years he 
represented the town of Lincoln in the House of 
Representatives, and then served several terms in 
the State Senate. In 1891 he was elected Lieuten- 
ant-Governor, and in 1892 declined a re-election to 
that office. He has held various other public and 
state offices, and has acted as a State Commissioner 
in many cases ; but the one in which he has taken 
the greatest satisfaction and interest is his connection 
with the State Home and School for Homeless and 
Dependent Children, having been Chairman of its 



Board of Control for many years. While in the 
Senate he introduced and procured the passage of 
an act creating the institution, and was Chairman of 
the Committee to select and purchase the property, 
which is one of the most charming locations in the 
state, where hundreds of homeless little ones have 
been kindly cared for, and good permanent homes 
found for them. Mr. Stearns is an active member 
of the Congregational Church in Central Falls, and 
is also a thirty-second degree Mason. He was 
married, June 26, 1856, to Miss Kate Falconer, a 
granddaughter of Hiram Falconer, one of the early 
pioneers in Southern Ohio ; they have had eight 
children, of whom seven are living : Deshla F., 
George R., Walter H., Kate R., Charles F., Henry 
F. and Caroline C. Stearns. 



STEVENS, Colonel Daniel, of Bristol, was born 
in Cambridge, Mass., September 6, 1849, son of 
Daniel W. and CaroHne (Partridge) Stevens. 
Colonel Stevens is of early American ancestry on 
both sides, and his great-grandfather on the 




DANIEL STEVENS. 

maternal side was a drummer-boy in the army of 
the Revolution. He received his early education 
in the public schools of Mansfield, Mass., after 
which he learned the trade of watchmaker and 
engraver at Fall River, Mass. In 1878 he went 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



139 



West and settled in Springfield, 111., the capital of 
the state and Lincoln's old home, where he worked 
at his trade seven years, returning East in 1885 and 
engaging as commercial traveller with the wholesale 
watch, diamond and jewelry house of D. C. Percival 
& Company, Boston. After six years with this 
firm he again went West in 1892 and located in 
Chicago as agent for the Bay State Watchcase 
Company, remaining with them until they were 
absorbed by a larger concern, in 1894, when he 
once more came East and settled in Bristol, R. I., 
establishing the retail jewelry business of Stevens 
& Company. Upon taking up his residence in 
Springfield, 111., he became a member of the 
National Guard of that state, and in June 1881 
was commissioned First Lieutenant of Light Battery 
B. Upon the consolidation of the state forces he 
was commissioned as Aide-de-Camp on the staff of 
Brigadier General J. N. Reece, commanding the 
Second Brigade, I. N. G., which commission he 
resigned on leaving the state. He became Adjutant 
of Bristol Train of Artillery, Rhode Island Militia, 
in 1894, and in 1895 was promoted to Colonel, 
which office and rank he now holds. He is also a 
member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery 
Company of Boston. Colonel Stevens has never 
taken any active part in politics. He is a Knight 
Templar and a member of Springfield Lodge No. 4, 
F. A. M., the same lodge to which Stephen A. 
Douglas belonged, and is also a member of Medina 
Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the 
Mystic Shrine, of Chicago. He was married, in 

1872, to Miss Mary Elizabeth Young, who died in 
1888, leaving two children: Waldo W., born in 

1873, and Ralph P. Stevens, born 1875. 



the graded public schools, and the Washington and 
Orange county grammar schools of Vermont. He 
began the study of medicine in the Dartmouth 
Medical College, continued it in the Long Island 
College Hospital, and returning to Dartmouth, grad- 
uated November 5, 1873, with the degree of M. D. 
The following December he was appointed assistant 
physician at the Butler Hospital, Providence, and 
served until February, 1876, when he began general 
practice in Orange, Mass., where he resided until in 
April 1879 he removed to Tiverton, R. I. In July 
1884 he was appointed Deputy Superintendent of 




p. SriMSON. 



STIMSON, Edward Payson, M. D., of Tiverton, 
was born in Waterbury, Washington county, Vt., 
June 8, 1849, son of Joel and Cynthia Roxana 
(Stone) Stimson. He is descended on both sides 
from old New England stock. Of his ancestors, 
Dr. James Stimson, who settled in Reading, Mass., 
about 1640, and his son Dr. James, Jr., practiced in 
Reading (now Wakefield) from 1640 to 1690 ; and 
James, son of James, Jr., settled in Tolland, Conn., 
about 1 7 16, and was the first physician to locate in 
that place. Joel Stimson, another of his ancestors, 
served in the Revolutionary war, and was one of the 
pioneer settlers of Vermont. His maternal ancestor 
Stone settled in Watertown, Mass., in 1630. The 
subject of this sketch received his early education in 



the State Insane Asylum of Rhode Island, at Crans- 
ton, and served until 1885, when he accepted the 
appointment of Assistant Superintendent of the Kan- 
sas State Asylum, at Osawatomie. Resigning that 
position in i888, he returned to Vermont, and re- 
sided in Randolph until 1893, when he renewed his 
practice at Tiverton, where he has since remained. 
Dr. Stimson is a member of the Rhode Island Medi- 
cal Society, the Vermont Medical Society, and the 
American Medical Association, and is one of the 
founders of the Miller's River Medical Society, at 
Athol, Mass. He was clerk of the School District 
of Tiverton, in 1881-82, and in West Randolph, Vt. 
he served as clerk of the Congregational Church 
from its first annual meeting after incorporation until 
his removal from the town. In politics he has always 



140 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



been a Prohibition Republican, but has never sought 
civil or political office. He was married at Brain- 
tree, Vt., December 7, 1875, by Rev. Samuel W. 
Dyke, to Miss Sarah Amanda Belcher, daughter of 
Jonathan Wales and Sarah Harwood Belcher, both 
of her parents being descendants of John Bass and 
Ruth Alden, the latter the third daughter of John 
Alden and Priscilla Molines of colonial fame. 



STONE, Waldo Hodge, homoeopathic physician 
and surgeon. Providence, was born in Olean, New 




W. H. STONE. 

York, July 8, 1855, son of Samuel Hollis and Betsey 
(Copeland) Stone. He is descended on his 
father's side from the Normans, and on his mother's 
side from the original Puritans. He possesses a 
coat-of-arms from both sides of the house. He can 
trace his ancestry directly to 1655, when Hugo 
Stone came to this country from England. His 
early education was received in a log-cabin school- 
house in Calhoun county. 111. He afterward attended 
the academy at Bridgewater, Mass., and graduated 
from the Bridgewater Normal School. He taught 
school at AVest Bridgewater in 1877 and became 
Superintendent of Schools the next year. Later he 
taught school in Danvers, Mass. He had been pur- 
suing his studies ia medicine, and in 1881 became 
resident physician at the Homoeopathic Dispensary 



in Boston, and in June 1882 he graduated from the 
Boston University School of Medicine. In Septem- 
ber 1882 he commenced the practice of medicine 
in Taunton, Mass., and was City Physician in 1884. 
He located in Providence in December 1886, and 
has been in active and successful practice since. 
He is also Surgeon of the Rhode Island Homoeo- 
pathic Hospital. He has been through all the 
chairs of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows 
and was Noble Grand of What Cheer Lodge in 
1893-94, and is now a member of the Grand Lodge 
of Rhode Island. He is a member of What Cheer 
Lodge and Minnehaha Encampment I. O. O. F., of 
the Knights of Pythias, of What Cheer Lodge, 
Providence Chapter, and Calvary Commandery A. 
F. & A M. He is also a Noble of the Mystic 
Shrine. He has been Secretary of the Rhode 
Island Homoeopathic Medical Society, and is a 
member of all the Homoeopathic Medical Societies 
of prominence in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. 
He is also a member of the American Institute of 
Homoeopathy. He has never taken an active part 
in politics, but is keenly alive to the issues of the 
day. He is a Republican by party affiliation. He 
married, June i, 1882, Miss Mary Elbe Goss of Dan- 
vers, Mass ; they have children : George Burrill 
and Samuel HolHs. 



'J'HAYER, Philo Elisha, brush manufacturer, 
Pawtucket, was born in Bellingham, Mass., 
March 4, 1847, son of Samuel and Miranda 
(Sherman) Thayer. He is of the ninth generation 
of the Thayer family in America. The first of the 
name to arrive in this country were Richard and 
Thomas, with their families, in 1630; they came 
from Braintree, Essex County, England, and settled 
in Massachusetts, calling their settlement Braintree 
in memory of their old home. Philo obtained his 
early education in the public schools and the high 
schools of Woonsocket, R. I., and West Milton, 
Ohio. He worked several years in a brush factory, 
and afterward for a few years in a grocery store. 
Becoming a partner in the present brush manufac- 
tory in 1873, he succeeded to the sole ownership 
in 1880, and has since conducted the business 
under the name of P. E Thayer & Co. He was 
also one-half owner in the Woonsocket Brush Com- 
pany from 1886 to 1893. Mr. Thayer was chosen 
to represent his town in the State Legislature of 
1894-95, and was re-elected for 1895-96. He 
served as a member of the City Council for the 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



141 



five years 1886-92, was again elected for 1895, and 
is a member of the Board of Aldermen for 1896, 
and was elected President of the Board January 
6, 1896. He has been actively interested in mili- 
tary matters, and was First Lieutenant in the 
Woonsocket Light Artillery for the years 1869-70. 
He is a member of the different Masonic bodies up 
to the thirty-second degree and Palestine Temple 
of the Mystic Shrine, and of Eureka Lodge of Odd 
Fellows, Pawtucket Council Royal Arcanum and 
Hope Lodge Knights of Honor ; he also belongs to 
the West Side Club of Providence, the Rhode 




PHILO E. THAYER, 

Island Universalist Club, the Pawtucket Business 
Men's Association, and the Garfield Club of the 
last named city. In politics he is a Republican. 
He was married, March 7, 1866, to Miss Georgianna 
F. Arnold ; they have two children : Annie L. and 
Hattie M. Thayer. 



TARBOX, Otho, Superintendent of Schools at 
West Greenwich, was born in West Greenwich, R. I., 
April 5, 1863, the son of David 2d and Sally M. 
(Cleaveland) Tarbox. He received his early edu- 
cation in the public schools of West Greenwich and 
attended East Greenwich Academy the fall and 
winter terms of 1883-84. He has followed the 
vocation of farming, and has been honored with a 



number of public offices at the hands of his fellow- 
townsmen. He was elected, May 28, 1894, a mem- 
ber of the Town Council and of the School Com- 
mittee. On April 3, 1895, he was elected a Senator 




OTHO TARBOX, 

in the General Assembly, and May 27, 1895, he was 
elected Assessor of Taxes and re-elected to the 
Council. He has been Superintendent of Schools 
since June 1894. He was initiated into Exeter 
Lodge of Odd Fellows, Exeter, R. I., in 1887, and 
admitted to the Grand Lodge in 1891. In politics 
he is a Republican. He is unmarried. 



TIEPKE, Henry Edwin, Mayor of the city of 
Pawtucket, was born March 21, 1857, in that part 
of Pawtucket which then was in Massachusetts but 
now is included in Rhode Island territory, son of 
Henry Gustave and Tabitha S. (Leach) Tiepke. 
His father was German and his mother American. 
He was educated in the public schools, and being 
left an orphan at an early age, secured his first em- 
ployment at the Bunnell Print Works, Pawtucket, 
as factory boy. Shortly after he engaged with the 
hardware firm of George Mumford & Company, 
Pawtucket, and upon their retirement from business,' 
connected himself with Sargent & Co., New York, 
the largest wholesale hardware house in America. 



142 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



He returned to Pawtucket to become clerk to the 
superintendent of the foundry department of the 
Fales & Jenks Machine Company. Later, he en- 
tered the employ of the James Hill Manufacturing 
Company of Providence, as manager, and in 1884 
he became New England agent for the Iron Clad 
Manufacturing Company of New York, which posi- 
tion he now holds. Mr. Tiepke began to take an 
active part in politics as soon as he was able to vote. 
His first office was that of District Clerk of the old 
town of Pawtucket, and after the city of Pawtucket 
was estabhshed, in 1885, he was successfully elected 




HENRY £. TIEPKE. 

to the respective offices of Ward Clerk, Warden, 
Common Councilman 1888-90, Alderman 1891, and 
Mayor 1894-95. Thus it is seen that he has had 
a thorough training for the public service. His 
best work in public life probably was in his advocacy 
of the passage of a law introducing the Australian 
system of voting in municipal elections ; his efforts 
toward the establishment of a municipal electric- 
lighting plant ; his instrumentality in establishing 
an ordinance requiring contractors for city work to 
submit bids ; and his executive work as chairman 
of the Cotton Centenary celebration in 1890, at 
which time was celebrated with pomp and cere- 
mony, and with great credit to the city, the centen- 
nial anniversary of the founding of the cotton-spin- 
ning industry in America by the use of waterpower. 



which it will be remembered was the work of Sam- 
uel Slater of Pawtucket. The executive capacity 
demonstrated by Mr. Tiepke on that occasion 
doubtless laid the foundation for his future success. 
Mayor Tiepke's administration of the executive 
office in 1894 and 1895 has received its best en- 
dorsement from the people, who have witnessed his 
introduction of modern business methods in the 
administration of public affairs ; the consolidation 
of several municipal departments into one general 
public works department, and various other meas- 
ures of economy, have resulted in the saving of 
large sums of money for the taxpayers. He has 
always been regarded as a safe and conservative 
public officer, and is a careful and critical student 
of municipal government. One of his achieve- 
ments, which it may be said attracted general atten- 
tion throughout the country, was in the settlement 
of the labor troubles in the winter of 1894, when 
the first substantial fruits of conciliation between 
labor and capital were demonstrated. Mr. Tiepke's 
political affiliations are with the Republican party. 
He has held the state office of Commissioner of 
Industrial Statistics from 1892 to date, and is also 
Superintendent of the State Census of 1895. He 
organized the Garfield Club of Pawtucket and has 
been its President from the beginning, is President 
of the Pawtucket Base-ball Association, and a mem- 
ber of the Pawtucket Business Men's Association and 
Pawtucket Cycle Club ; also a member of the Ath- 
letic Association, Union Club, West Side Club and 
Falstaff Club of Providence, the Home Market, 
Norfolk and Exchange clubs of Boston, the Repub- 
lican Club of New York City, and the Patria Club, — 
auxiliary branch American Institution of Civics. 
He is a member of various masonic societies, in- 
cluding Union Lodge, Pawtucket Chapter, Paw- 
tucket Council, R. S. M., and Holy Sepulchre 
Commandery Knights Templar, also of Enterprise 
Lodge, I. O. O. F. Mr. Tiepke was married, April 
25, 1882, to Miss Marietta Harkness Paine; they 
have no children. 



THOMPSON, Henry Manton, Clerk of the 
Supreme Court, and merchant of Bristol, was born 
in Bristol, R. I., April 8, [850, the son of Joseph 
S. and Roxana (Fish) Thompson. He received 
his early education in the public schools, and early 
devoted himself to business vocations. For the 
past twehe years he has successfully conducted a 
retail grocery store in Bristol. He was a member 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



143 



of the Town Council for four years and of the 
Republican Town Committee for six years. In 
May 187 1 he was elected Clerk of the Supreme 
Court, and has held that position up to the present 




HENRY M, THOMPSON. 



time. He is a member of the Royal Arcanum. 
In politics he is a Republican. He married, 
January 15, 1874, Miss Henrietta Bufifington; they 
have two children : Charles H. and Nellie May. 



TILLINGHAST, Frank Wayland, lawyer and 
manufacturer, Providence, was born in Richmond, 
R. I., May 19, 1859, son of Wilham B. and Julia 
(Thompson) TiJlinghast. He received his early 
education in the public schools, and fitted for col- 
lege at the New Hampton Institute, New Hampton, 
N. H. Entering the Boston University Law School, 
he graduated in 1883, was admitted to the bar in 
July of that year, and at once began the practice of 
law in Westerly, R. I. After an active practice of 
three years he became interested in manufacturing 
at Johnston, R. I., and removed to that place in 
1886. For something more than a year he gave but 
little attention to law practice, the new enterprise 
in which he was engaged demanding most of his 
time ; but after getting the business better organized 
he was able to resume his professional work, and 
opened a law office in Providence, where he has 



had a satisfactory and lucrative practice. The line 
of business in which he engaged at Johnston was 
the dyeing and preparing of cotton yarns. In 1890 
he organized the firm of Tillinghast, Stiles & Com- 
pany, incorporated, with himself as President and 
George E. Tillinghast as Treasurer, and with Walter 
F. Stiles of Fitchburg also interested. The enter- 
prise has developed into a large business and the 
firm is as well-known and ranks as high as any in its 
line. In 1893 he became the owner of the Phcenix 
Hosiery Mills, now engaged in manufacturing wool- 
en yarns and for more than a year past in operation 
night and day. Pardon S. Peckham, Jr., is associated 
with him in this business, and is superintendent 
of the mills. In 1894 he organized the Vermont 
Manufacturing Company, incorporated, and has since 
been President of the concern, which is engaged 
in manufacturing butterine, has a fine plant on Jack- 
son street, Providence, and is now selling three 
hundred thousand pounds of its product monthly. 
In 1893 Mr. Tillinghast also purchased, in company 
with his father, the Arcadia Village in the town of 
Richmond — the home of his childhood and his 
father's place of residence. This purchase included 




F. W, TILLINGHAST. 



two mills operating ten thousand spindles and manu- 
facturing print cloths, which have since been steadily 
running. In 1894 the enterprise was incorporated 
under the name of the Arcadia Company, with F. 



144 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



W. Tillinghast as President. In politics Mr. Till- 
inghast is a Republican. He was a Representative 
from Johnston in the State Legislature in 1888-89, 
declining a renomination, has been Chairman of 
the Republican Town Committee of Johnston for 
the past three years, and is Town Solicitor of the 
town of Johnston, having held the position for three 
years. He is a member of the Pomham and West 
Side clubs of Providence. He was married, May 4, 
1885, to Miss Grace G. Peckham, daughter of Hon. 
Thomas C. Peckham of Coventry, R. I. ; they have 
two children : Carl K. and Leroy L. Tillinghast. 



-TILLINGHAST, Pardon Elisha, Associate 
Justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, was 
born in West Greenwich, R. I., December 10, 1836, 
son of Rev. John and Susan C. (Avery) Tillinghast. 
He is a direct descendant in the eighth generation 
of Elder Pardon Tillinghast, the founder of the 
Tillinghast family in the United States, who came 
from Severne-Cliffe, near Beachy Head, England, 
in 1642, and settled in Providence; he built the 
first meetinghouse in the town at his own expense, 
about the year 1700, on the west side of North 
Main street nearly opposite Star street ; he was a 
compeer of Roger Williams, a prominent merchant 
and a most useful and respected citizen. Judge 
Tillinghast, whose father was pastor of the West 
Greenwich Baptist Church for forty years, never re- 
ceiving any salary for his services, received his 
early education in the public schools of West 
Greenwich, at KiUingly, Conn., and at Hall's Acad- 
emy, Moosup, Conn. He afterward attended the 
East Greenwich Academy, the Rhode Island State 
Normal School, and Potter & Hammond's Commer- 
cial College in Providence, and later studied Latin 
with Rev. Mr. Richards of Providence and Hon. 
Thomas K. King of Pawtucket. At the age of sev- 
enteen he commenced to teach district schools, 
" boarding around," in order to earn money to ob- 
tain an education, and taught for three winters. He 
obtained his entire education and training without 
the least financial assistance from anyone. He 
commenced his active career by teaching school, 
which profession he followed for seven years, — two 
years as Principal of the Valley Falls Grammar 
School, one year as Principal of the Meeting-street 
Grammar School, Providence, and four years as 
Principal of the Grove-street Grammar School, Paw- 
tucket. He studied law with Charles W. Thrasher, 
Esq., and Hon. Thomas K. King of Pawtucket, and 



commenced practice in April 1867, succeeding to 
the clientage of Hon. Thomas K. King on the lat- 
ter's appointment as United States Consul at Bel- 
fast, Ireland. He met with good success as a gen- 
eral practitioner, but soon turned his attention to 
municipal law and from 1874 to 1881 was Town 
Solicitor of Pawtucket. He was a Representative 
in the General Assembly from Pawtucket for three 
years and Senator for four years, occupying the 
position of Chairman of the Judiciary Committee in 
the latter body. He was Chairman of the Joint 
Select Committee of the two houses in the Revision 




p. E. TILLINGHAST. 

of the Statutes in 1872, and was Chairman of the 
Joint Select Committee on the reception and enter- 
tainment of President Hayes on the occasion of his 
visit to Rhode Island, and made the address of 
welcome. He was elected a Justice of the Supreme 
Court in June 1881, and served in the Court of 
Common Pleas until 1891, since which time he has 
served in the Supreme Court, Appellate Division. 
His opinions may be found in Rhode Island Re- 
ports, Vols. 13-19. During the civil war he was a 
member of the Twelfth Rhode Island Volunteers, 
Colonel Brown, with the rank of Quartermaster- 
Sergeant, and was honorably discharged on the ex- 
piration of his term of enlistment. He was con- 
nected with the state militia from 1862 to 1881, 
holding the office of Second Lieutenant of Cavalry, 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



H5 



First Lieutenant and Adjutant of Pawtucket Light 
Guards, Captain on staff of General Daniels, 
Colonel and Brigadier-General on staffs of Gover- 
nors Van Zandt and Littlefield, and was Judge Ad- 
vocate-General of the State for six years. He has 
always taken an active part in educational and re- 
ligious affairs. He served on the School Com- 
mittee of Pawtucket for a number of years, also as 
a trustee of the Free Public Library, and has been 
President of the First Baptist Society of Pawtucket 
for six years. He has been one of the trustees of 
the Providence County Savings Bank for eighteen 
years. In 1890 he received the honorary degree of 
A. M. from Brown University. He is a member 
and was at one time President of the Rhode Island 
Baptist Social Union, and is also a member of the 
Rhode Island Bar Club and the Pawtucket Business 
Men's Association. In politics Judge Tillinghast is 
and always has been a Republican, and was Moder- 
ator in town meetings in Pawtucket for many years, 
and in West Greenwich for seven years, commenc- 
ing at the age of twenty-two. He married, Novem- 
ber 13, 1867, Miss Ellen F. Paine; they have 
four children : Alice L., John A., Angelina F. and 
Frederick W. Tillinghast. John graduated in 1895 
from Brown University, and is now in Harvard Law 
School; Alice married Ralph R. Clapp in 1893 and 
lives in London, England. 



UTTER, George Herbert, editor Westerly Daily 
Sun, was born July 24, 1854, at Plainfield, N. J., 
the son of George B. and Mary Starr (Maxson) 
Utter. His father was born in Oneida county, N. Y., 
where his father had emigrated from Hopkinton, 
R. I. His mother's father was John Maxson, a direct 
descendant of Newport's first settlers ; and her 
mother was a Starr, the daughter of Jesse Starr of 
Newport, a Revolutionary soldier, and a grand- 
daughter of Vine Starr, another Revolutionary soldier. 
On this branch the line is unbroken to Elder 
William Brewster, who came in the Mayflower. 
George H. received his early education in the 
private schools of Westerly, and for two years in 
the preparatory department of Alfred University, 
Alfred, N. Y. Then for two years in the Westerly 
high school. He entered Amherst College, Mass., 
and graduated in the class of 1877. He had 
learned the printer's trade before entering college, 
and after graduation he became associated with his 
father and uncle, publishers of the Westerly Weekly. 
On the death of his uncle in 1886 he became a 



member of the firm, and on the death of his father 
in 1893 sole owner. In August, 1893, he started 
the Westerly Daily Sun. He has always taken an ac- 
tive interest in public affairs. He has been a Trustee 
of School District No. i. Westerly. He was colonel 
on the staff of Governor Bourne from 1883 to 1885. 
He was elected a member of the Rhode Island 
House of Representatives 1885 to 1889 and was 
Speaker the last year. He was a member of the 
Senate from 1889 to 1891. He was elected Sec- 
retary of State in 1891 and re'-elected two times, 




GEO. H, UTTER, 

when he declined a renomination. In politics he 
is a Republican. He married. May 19, 1880, Miss 
Elizabeth L. Brown of Allston, Mass. ; they h ave 
children : George Benjamin, Henry Edwin, Mary 
Starr and Wilfred Brown Utter. 



VERNON, George Edward, merchant, Newport, 
was born in Newport, April 16, 1847, son of George 
E. and Anne A. (Bradford) Vernon. He was edu- 
cated in the public schools of his native city and at 
Bryant & Stratton's Commercial College in Provi- 
dence, and entered upon mercantile life when under 
the age of fifteen. From 1861 to 1866 he was en- 
gaged in the coal business, after which he was in the 
wholesale grocery business in Chicago for three 
years, and went to Yankton, now South Dakota, 



146 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



engaging in various occupations. Returning in 1875 
he entered into the furniture trade with his father. 
After his father's death in November 1889, he con- 
tinued the business with his mother and brother 
under the firm name of Geo. E.Vernon & Company. 




GEO. E. VERNON. 

Mr. Vernon was Major of the Newport Light Infantry 
from 1862 to 1866, and is prominent in Masonry, as 
well as other fraternal orders. He has served as 
Master of St. Paul's Lodge A. F. & A. M., was Emi- 
nent Commander of Washington Commandery 
Knights Templar in 1895, ^^'^ ^^ ^^^^ Regent of 
Coronet Council Royal Arcanum and Past Leader 
of Powell Council Home Circle. He is also a 
member of Newport Chapter Royal Arch Masons 
and of De Blois Council Royal and Select Masters, 
also of the Newport Business Men's Association. 
In politics he is a Repubhcan. He was married, 
February 3, 1873, to Miss Harriet Peabody; they 
have one child : Susan B. Vernon. 



VIALL, Nelson, Warden of the Rhode Island 
State Prison, was born in Plainfield, Conn., Novem- 
ber 27, 1827, son of Samuel and Hannah (Shorey) 
Viall. He is of old Colonial stock. His ancestor, 
John Viall, came from England to Boston, and is 
mentioned in the second report of the Record 
Commissioner to January 11, 1639, when he was 



allowed to be an inhabitant, and on June 2, 1641, 
was made a freeman. His descendants settled in 
Swansea and Rehoboth, Mass., where they held 
prominent positions, and served in the Colonial and 
Revolutionary wars. His mother was a daughter of 
Col. Abel Shorey of Seekonk, Mass. He received 
his early education in the common schools, and at 
the age of fifteen was apprenticed to Hon. Amos 
C. Barstow, stove manufacturer, Providence, to 
learn the trade of a moulder. During his appren- 
ticeship he joined the Providence Artillery Com- 
pany, now the United Train of Artillery. AVhen 
the war with Mexico broke out in 1846 he joined 
the Rhode Island contingent in General Scott's army. 
He took part in the engagements of Contressa and 
Chapultepec, where he was wounded in ascending 
one of the scaling ladders, and in the operation 
which led to the capture of the city of Mexico. 
He was twice promoted for meritorious conduct. 
After the expiration of his service in 1848 he re- 
turned to Providence, and for about two years was 
in the employ of the late Thomas J. Hill. In 1850 
he went to Bahia, Brazil, to erect and manage an 




NELSON VIALL. 

iron foundry, and remained there until 1854, when 
he returned to Providence and resumed his occu- 
pation as a moulder. When the civil war broke out 
he was Lieutenant-Colonel of the Providence Artil- 
lery, and immediately recruited a company, which 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



147 



was incorporated in the First Regiment, under the 
command of Colonel Burnside, and marched with it 
in the defence of Washington. On the first of 
June he returned to Providence, when within three 
days he recruited Company C for the Second Regi- 
ment, of which he was commissioned Captain. He 
was promoted to Major for gallant conduct at the 
battle of Bull Run. On the 12th of June, 1862, he 
was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel, and was pro- 
moted to Colonel December 15, 1862, while com- 
manding his regiment in the battle of Fredericks- 
burg. While with the Second Regiment he took 
part in the battles of Bull Run, Malvern Hill, 
Williamsburg, Antietam and Fredericksburg. He 
resigned January 5. 1863, and returned to Provi- 
dence, when in August of the same year he was 
commissioned Major and afterward Colonel of the 
Fourteenth Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (colored). 
He organized the regiment of eighteen hundred 
men and served with it in the Department of the 
Gulf until the close of the war. For his gallantry 
and merit he received the brevet of Brigadier- 
General April 15, 1866. In 1866 he was elected a 
Representative in the General Assembly, from 
Providence, and in May of the same year he was 
elected Chief of Police for Providence, which posi- 
tion he held for a year, resigning to accept the 
position of Warden of the State Prison, which he 
still holds, his administration having been marked 
with great success. He was one of the nine charter 
members who organized the Grand Army of the 
Republic in Rhode Island, and is a member of 
Prescott Post; in 1866 he was elected Junior Vice- 
Commissioner of the Department of Rhode Island. 
He is a member of the Soldiers and Sailors' Histori- 
cal Society of Providence ; also of St. John's Lodge 
A. F. & A. M. He married, February 5, 1848, 
Miss Mary W., daughter of Silas and Freelove 
(Millard) Peckham ; they have had six children : 
Willard Seymour, Arthur Manchester, Grace Eveline, 
Mary Nelson, Ellen Estella and Nelson Shorey, of 
whom only two, Grace Eveline and Nelson Shorey 
Viall, are now living. 



WE EDEN, Charles Edv/ard, hotel proprietor 
and insurance agent, Jamestown, was born in 
Jamestown, September 4, 1848, the son of Clarke C. 
and Lucy K. (Palmer) Weeden. He received his 
early education in the public schools of Jamestown. 
He has done much to develop his native town as a 
summer resort. He was proprietor of the Prospect 
House in Jamestown from 1888 [to 1891 inclusive. 



and of the Hotel Thorndike at that place from 1891 
to the present time. He has been an insurance 
agent since 1882, representing the Providence 
Washington Insurance Company. He was Town 
Clerk from November 1888 to April 1891, was 




CHAS. E. WEEDEN. 

President of the Town Council from April 1892 to 
April 1895, and was elected Senator from James- 
town to the Rhode Island Legislature April 4, 1895. 
In politics he is a Republican. He married, 
October 12, 1886, Miss Flora M. Clarke; they 
have no children. 



WHIPPLE, William Lewis, merchant. Provi- 
dence, was born in Olneyville, September 21, 1851, 
son of Stephen D. and Emily D. (Barnard) Whipple. 
His father was a leading marketman of Olneyville, 
and the son has always been closely and very promi- 
nently identified with the interests of that commu- 
nity. He received a common-school education, 
was graduated from the Mount Pleasant grammar 
school in the class of 1868, and was then employed 
for three years in the general store of Holloway & 
Phillips. He next took a course in bookkeeping 
and commercial law at Scholfield's Commercial 
College, Providence, graduating from that institu- 
tion in 1873. Entering the employ of Thomas 
Sawyer, Jr., as bookkeeper, he continued in that 



148 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



capacity until June 1879, when he resigned to en- 
gage in business on his own account. In August 
1879 he opened a house-furnishing establishment at 
47-49 Manton avenue, where he has built up an 
extensive business in the better lines of goods. At 



been evidenced in a marked manner. He is a thirty- 
second degree Mason, and in the Odd Fellows holds 
membership in both the Grand Lodge and Grand 
Encampment of Rhode Island. He is also a mem- 
ber of the West Side and Providence Press clubs. 
Mr. Whipple was married, October 21, 1880, to 
Miss Lucy A. Sawyer, daughter of Thomas Sawyer 
of Providence. 




WM, L. WHIPPLE. 

the present time over thirty-five thousand square 
feet of floor space is required to properly display 
the various lines of carpets, furniture and stoves in 
his stock. The manufacture of tin and sheet-iron 
ware is carried on, and a plumbing department has 
also been added. Mr. Whipple was elected to the 
Common Council of Providence from the Tenth 
Ward in 1884, and served three years, to the satis- 
faction of all concerned ; he was Chairman of the 
Harbor Committee, a member of the committee on 
Lamps and Highways, and one of the special com- 
mittee on the extensive "Gray Plan" for sewerage 
of the city. He was elected Representative to the 
State Legislature for 1893-94, and served on the 
important committees of Corporations and Manu- 
facturers. In November 1895 he was again elected 
to the Common Council from Ward Eight, and is at 
present serving on the joint standing committees 
on Police and Water. He is a Director of the 
Atlantic National Bank, Providence, and was the 
first Vice-President of the Olneyville Business Men's 
Association, and the following year filled the office 
of President, in which organization his abilities have 



WHITE, Hunter Carson, Sheriff of the County 
of Providence, was born in Zanesville, Ohio, 
December 18, 1853, son of Amos L. and Nancy J. 
(Harris) White. He came from early Rhode 
Island stock on both sides, being descended from 
the Perrys, Lewises and Hoxies on his father's side, 
and on his mother's side from Thomas Harris, who 
came over to Rhode Island in 1630 with Roger 
Williams in the ship Lyon from Bristol, England. 
He was educated in the public schools of Provi- 
dence and at the United States Naval Academy. 
In business life he was prominent as Manager of 
the Providence Cotton Lining Compnny from 1883 




H. C. WHITE, 

to 1892, and he has held the office of Sheriff of the 
county of Providence from Jnne i, 189 1. In 
politics he is an active Repviblican ; has been a 
member of the Republican City Committee from 
1878, Chairman 01 the Republican State Central 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



149 



Committee from 1892, and a member of the School 
Committee from 1881. He was Assistant Adjutant- 
General of Rhode Island from 1892 to October 31, 
1895, and then Adjutant-General. He is an ex- 
President of the FrankHn Lyceum, Vice-President 
of the West Side Club, and a member of the Society 
for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry, the 
Soldiers and Sailors' Historical Society, Rhode 
Island Historical Society, Providence Athletic 
Association, and the Pomham, Squantum and Press 
clubs ; also a thirty-third degree Mason, A. & A. 
Scottish Rite, and Past Commander of St. John's 
Commandery Knights Templar. He was married, 
December 11, 1877, to Miss Carrie H. Kelton ; 
they have one child, a boy : Hunter C. White, Jr. 



WIGGIN, Oliver Chase, M. D,, Professor of 
Biology in the Rhode Island College of Agriculture 
and Mechanic Arts, was born in Meredith, N. H., 
May 3, 1839, son of John Mead and Polly Fox 
(Wadleigh) Wiggin. He is a descendant of Thomas 
Wiggin, first Governor or Agent of the " Upper 
Plantations " — that settlement about Portsmouth, 
now New Hampshire — who came to this country 
in 1631, in charge of a colony sent out by the Bris- 
tol Company, which had a special grant of what is 
now Stratham, N. H. Lords Say and Brook suc- 
ceeded the Bristol Company, and Thomas Wiggin 
succeeded them, by purchase. He was noted as a 
most able and useful adviser and manager in those 
pioneer days. The original homestead has never 
been out of the family name to this day, and the 
graves of Thomas Wiggin and his wife, Mary Whit- 
ing, are well preserved. Andrew Wiggin, son of 
Thomas, married Hannah Bradstreet, daughter of 
Gov. Simon Bradstreet and Ann Dudley, who was a 
daughter of Gov. Thomas Dudley, a descendant of 
Alfred the Great, King of England, also Hugh Capet, 
King of France. The subject of this sketch is a 
lineal descendant of Andrew Wiggin. He acquired 
his early education in the common schools and 
academies of New Hampshire, was fitted for col- 
lege in the Providence High School, pursued a two- 
years elective course in Brown University, gradu- 
ated from the Harvard Medical School July 9, 1866, 
and practiced medicine in the city of Providence 
twenty years, establishing an especially large and 
successful practice in obstetrics and the treatment 
of children. He was President of the Providence 
Medical Association two years, in 1880-82, Presi- 
dent of the Rhode Island Medical Society two 



years, 1884-86, Visiting Physician to the Rhode Is- 
land Hospital eight years, from 1875 to 1882, sev- 
eral years Consulting Physician to the Dexter Asy- 
lum and the Home for Aged Men, and was an 
incorporator of the Providence Lying-in Hospital, 
and a trustee and its President from its founding in 
1884 until 1891. At present he holds the position 
of Professor of Biology in the Rhode Island College 
of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, in which 
capacity he has served three years. In addition to 
his membership in the Providence Medical Associa- 
tion and Rhode Island Medical Society, he is a 
member of the American Medical Association and 




OLIVER C. WIGGIN. 

the Franklin Society. In politics he is a Repub- 
lican. Dr. Wiggin has always had a warm love for 
natural history and for rural life in general. He 
has had a farm wherein he could find diversion and 
a field for study and experiment from childhood, 
and at present has several thousand acres in Vir- 
ginia. His knowledge of embryology and compara- 
tive anatomy and physiology has contributed in no 
small degree to his success in fine stock breeding, 
while his knowledge of chemistry, geology and botany 
in their special relations to husbandry has stood him 
in good stead in his practical agriculture and horti- 
culture. He has contributed numerous articles to 
agricultural periodicals and has delivered occasional 
addresses to agricultural and scientific societies and 



I50 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



before other audiences. He was married, Decem- 
ber 3, 1878, to Mrs. Helen Mortimer Jenckes, widow 
of Leland Delos Jenckes, Esq., and eldest daughter 
of the late Hon. Charles Nourse of Woonsocket ; 
she died May 22, 1890, leaving no children. 



WILLIAMS, William Frederick, physician and 
surgeon, Bristol, was born in New York city, 
December 23, 1859, the son of Isaac Frazee and 
Mary Elizabeth (Weed) Williams. He is a direct 
descendant in the ninth generation of Robert Wil- 




W. FRED WILLIAMS. 

Hams of Roxbury, Mass., among whose descendants 
were one of the signers of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, another the founder of WilHams College, 
and others of prominence and distinction. His 
own father was a very active and influential man in 
his adopted town and state, many times a member 
of the Town Council and its President, a member 
of both houses of the General Assembly, many 
years a member of the School Committee, a bank 
director, high in the Masonic and Odd Fellows fra- 
ternities, superintendent of a great manufacturing 
establishment and the inventor of many useful arti- 
cles. He received his early education in the public 
and private schools of Bristol and at Mowry & 
Goff's school of Providence, and graduated from 



Brown University with the degree of A. B. in 1883. 
He entered Harvard Medical School in 1886, after 
a year of preliminary study, and graduated with the 
degree of M. D. in 1889. He practiced for a few 
months in New York city, but illness in his family 
caused a return to Bristol, where he has since prac- 
ticed. Dr. Williams is a vestryman of St. Michael's 
Church, a member of the School Committee and a 
Director in the Bristol County Savings Bank. 
He has been Medical Examiner for Bristol county, 
the second district, since 1892. He was Ensign in 
the Naval Reserve Torpedo Company for three 
years, 1891-94, and is now Lieutenant in command. 
He is a member of the Providence Medical Asso- 
ciation, the Harvard Medical Alumni Association, 
the Brown University Medical Association, the 
Harvard Club of Rhode Island, the Medico-Legal 
Society, the Providence Athletic Association, the 
Neptune Boat Club, and various other societies and 
organizations. In politics he is a Republican. He 
married, January 20, 1891, Miss Mildred Lewis 
Williams ; they have no children. 



WILSON, William Edward, Principal of the 
Rhode Island State Normal School, Providence, was 
born March 26, 1847, among the hills of western 
Pennsylvania, near Zelienople in Beaver county, 
son of Francis Thomas and Mary Ann (Morrison) 
Wilson. His ancestors on both sides came from 
the North of Ireland in the eighteenth century, the 
Wilson ancestry living for a time in Northampton 
county, then moving to Beaver county in 1803, 
crossing the Alleghanies on pack horses. He grew 
up on the farm which his grandfather and his father 
had cleared in the woods, his early experiences 
being those of the average country boy during the 
years just before the war. The school of his boy- 
hood was kept in a log house at the edge of a 
wood, and afterward in a less primitive one of 
brick. With no other education than that given 
by the common schools of that day he commenced 
teaching in 1865, during the winter terms, in the 
country ungraded schools. He attended the State 
Normal School at Edinboro, Pa., and afterward 
the West Virginia State Normal School at Hunting- 
ton, graduating there in 1870. Having prepared for 
college at an academy at Jamestown, Pa , he entered 
Monmouth College at Monmouth, Illinois, and 
graduated from the classical course in 1873. He 
was immediately ap]>ointed to a position in the 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



151 



State Normal School at Peru, Nebraska, just then 
vacated by Professor H. Straight. This position 
he held for two years, during which time he was act- 
ing principal for one term. In June 1875 he went 
abroad for study and travel ; he studied history and 



Stanley Ramsdell and Francis Thompson, August 
23, 1887 ; and Caroline Lucile, September i, 1889. 
Of these all are living except Ralph, who died 
July 27, 1882. 




W. E. WILSON. 

literature at Edinburgh University, and visited 
England, France, Germany, Switzerland and Bel- 
gium, studying meanwhile during his travels, schools 
and educational systems of the different countries. 
On his return he taught in the Morgan Park Acad- 
emy, Chicago, and was afterward principal of high 
schools at Tekamah, North Platte and Brownville, 
Nebraska. From 1881 to 1884 he was Professor of 
Natural Science in Coe College, a Presbyterian 
institution at Cedar Rapids, Iowa. From there he 
came to Rhode Island to teach physics and biology 
in the State Normal School, which position he held 
from 1884 to 1892, when he was elected Principal. 
In connection with his work as teacher, he has held 
the position of Superintendent of Schools both in 
Nebraska and in Rhode Island, and has done general 
educational work by lecturing and writing. He is 
a member of the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity and of the 
Temple of Honor. In 1881, June 30, Mr. Wilson 
married, at Ceredo, West Virginia, Miss Florence 
May Ramsdell, who is a descendant of John Alden 
of the Mayflower; their children are : Ralph, born 
April 28, 1882; Florence Alden, August 5, 1883; 



\VYMAN, Colonel John Crawford, manufac- 
turer, and Secretary of the Old Colony Co-opera- 
tive Bank, Providence, was born in Northboro, 
Massachusetts, September 13, 1822, son of Abraham 
and Sarah (Crawford) Wyman. He received his 
early education in the public schools until about 
twelve years of age, when he was put into a country 
store in his native town. In his eighteenth year he 
procured a clerkship in the well-known drygoods 
house of H. B. Claflin, then located in Worcester, 
Mass. Subsequently he was engaged in mercantile 
business for himself, in Boston, Worcester and New 
York until 1861. Upon the breaking out of the 
civil war he abandoned business for the military 
service, and in May 1862 was commissioned as 
Captain of Company A, Thirty-third Regiment 
Massachusetts Infantry. The following September 




J. C. WYMAN. 

he was appointed Provost Marshal of Alexandria, 
Virginia, and served in that capacity until the 
spring of 1863, when he was placed in charge of 
forwarding supplies to the Army of the Potomac, 
then in command of Major-General Meade. In 



i52 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



October 1863 he was ordered to report to Brigadier- 
General D. C. McCullom, General Manager of the 
United States Military Railroads, and was after- 
wards transferred to the Thirty-third Massachusetts 
Cavalry in Louisiana, but was ordered by the Secre- 
tary of War to remain attached to the military 
railroad service. In May 1865, after serving as one 
of the military escort accompanying the remains of 
President Lincoln from Washington to Springfield, 
he resigned his commission and became connected 
with the Renssalaer Iron and Steel Company of 
Troy, New York. In 1882 he removed to Rhode 
Island, engaging first in mercantile business, 
and afterwards (1882) in cotton manufacturing. 
Colonel Wyman's business and executive abilities, 
combined with his personal qualities, soon brought 
him into prominence in the community and state of 
his adoption. He was elected Representative to 
the General Assembly from the town of Lincoln in 
1888, served as Executive Commissioner of the 
State of Rhode Island to the World's Columbian 
Exposition in Chicago, and has recently accepted 
an appointment by Governor Lippitt as Commis- 
sioner to the forthcoming Mexican National 
Exposition of Industries and the Fine Arts. In 
politics he is a Republican. Colonel Wyman was 
married in 1846 to Miss Emma C. Willard, of 
Uxbridge, Mass. ; she died in Brookline, Mass., in 
December 1861. In 1888 he married Miss Lillie 
B. Chace ; they have one child, a son : Arthur C. 
Wyman, born September 21, 1889. 



WEST, Thomas Francis, lawyer, Providence, 
was born in Dublin, Ireland, February 29, 1844, son 
of John and Catherine (Cavanagh) West, of Irish 
ancestry. He came to this country in 1852 and 
settled in Providence, receiving his education in 
the public schools of that city. At the outbreak 
of the civil war he enlisted, in 1861, in the Seventh 
New York Cavalry, served with distinction, being 
wounded at Chancellorsville, Virginia, and was 
mustered out in 1864. At the close of the war he 
returned to Providence, joined the Fenians, and 



participated in the famous raid on Canada in 1867. 
In 1872 he joined the Massachusetts State Militia, 
and did guard duty for two weeks at the great 
Boston fire in November of that year. He adopted 
the profession of engineer in 1872, and at one time 
was connected with Thomas A. Edison, in Newark, 
New Jersey; also with the American Conduit Com- 
pany of Massachusetts, but commenced the study 
of law, and in 1892 was admitted to the Rhode 
Island Bar. Mr. West has always been actively 




THOS. F WEST. 

interested in politics, having held offices both in 
Boston and Providence, and is at present one of 
the State Central Committee of Rhode Island. He 
is also connected with several secret and social 
orders, and is a member of the Grand Army, 
National Veteran Association, Providence Press 
Club, and other organizations. In 1894 he visited 
his birthplace, and made an extensive tour of the 
Continent. Mr. West is married and has two 
children : Alfred L. and Josephine P. West. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



PART III. 



ALLEN, Colonel Crawford, Jr., was born in 
Providence, April 2, 1840, son of Crawford and 
Sarah Seiiter (Crocker) Allen, and died in that city. 




CRAWFORD ALLEN, JR. 

May 7, 1894. Mr. Allen was descended on both 
sides from early New England ancestry. His father 
was one of the noted manufacturers whose enter- 
prise and skill have made the name of Rhode Island 
famous in the industrial world, for many years at 
the head of the Allen Print Works, Providence. 
He was a grandson of Zachariah and Anne (Crawford) 
Allen, and a nephew of Hon. Zachariah Allen, a 
graduate of Brown University in the class of 1813, 
and long distinguished as a lawyer, scientist, in- 
ventor and manufacturer. The family came from 
Dorsetshire, England, in 1636. On the maternal 
side he was a grandson of Rev. Nathan B. Crocker, 



D. D., a prominent Episcopal divine of Providence, 
and a great-grandson of Dr. Isaac Senter, a noted 
physician of Newport, Surgeon in Benedict Arnold's 
expedition to Quebec and in the Revolutionary 
army, honorary member of the medical societies of 
London and Edinburgh, and for many years Presi- 
dent of the Society of the Cincinnati of Rhode Isl- 
and. The subject of this sketch attended the 
University Grammar School in Providence, prepara- 
tory for college, and entered Brown University, but 
did not graduate, as before the completion of his 
college course he went abroad with a tutor, making 
an extensive tour of Europe and extending his trip 
around the world, visiting China, the East Indies 
and the Asiatic Islands. Upon his arrival at San 
Francisco news of the breaking out of the Rebellion 
reached him, and he immediately returned home 
and enlisted in a battery of light artillery then being 
formed in Providence. On November 7, 1861, he 
was commissioned by Governor Sprague as Second 
Lieutenant of Battery G, First Rhode Island Light 
Artillery, and November i8, 1862, was promoted to 
First Lieutenant ; his regiment joined the Army of 
the Potomac and participated in the Peninsula cam- 
paign, and later in the battles of Fredericksburg 
and Antietam, also in the second battle of Freder- 
icksburg, where Lieutenant Allen was slightly 
wounded. Shortly after the latter engagement he 
was made Adjutant of the regiment and Acting 
Adjutant-General of the artillery brigade of the 
Sixth Army Corps, which positions he held until 
September 30, 1863, when he was promoted to the 
Captaincy of Battery H, and served at various 
points in the defence of Washington. For several 
months he was in command of Fort Richards, near 
the Falls of the Potomac. In the spring of 1864, 
Battery H was transferred to a more active scene of 
operations, joining the artillery reserve of the Army of 
the Potomac and participating in many important 
movements and more or less severe engagements. In 



154 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



the following January the battery joined the artillery 
brigade of the Sixth Army Corps, and took part, 
April 2, 1865, in the final assault on Petersburg. 
On this occasion Captain Allen was warmly com- 
mended by General Wheaton, commanding the 
First Division of the Sixth Corps, for the admirable 
handling of his battery, and was recommended for 
promotion to Major by brevet, "for distinguished 
gallantry and most valuable services at the assault 
on the enemy's works at Petersburg," which pro- 
motion he received from the President bearing date 
of April the second. Captain Allen and his battery 
continued in active service until the close of the 
war, and it is said, on the authority of an officer 
present, that to Battery H belongs the honor of 
firing the first gun discharged in the country in 
celebration of Lee's surrender. Major Allen was 
breveted Lieutenant-Colonel on June 12 following, 
and the battery returned home and was mustered 
out June 28, 1865. After the close of his army 
career, until his marriage some twelve years later. 
Colonel Allen spent the greater part of his time 
abroad, having a residence in London, and coming 
home only at infrequent intervals. The severities 
and exposures of army service had implanted in his 
constitution the germs of a fatal malady, to which 
he finally succumbed, passing away at his home in 
Providence, in the midst of his family, to which he 
was devotedly attached. May 7, 1894. Colonel 
Allen was a member of the old Rhode Island Club 
of Providence, also of the Sons of the American 
Revolution, and of several clubs abroad, his favorite 
social organization being the Junior Naval and Mili- 
tary Club of London. In politics he was strongly 
Republican in principles, but independent in his 
following of party candidates. He was married, 
November 19, 1877, to Miss Clara Dennison, 
daughter of Samuel Foster, a prominent manu- 
facturer of Providence, now living at the age of 
ninety-two years ; they had four children : Crawford, 
Ella Clarke, Sarah Senter and Churchill Senter 
Allen. 



ANTHONY, James, Sheriff of Newport County, 
was born in Middletown, R. I., November 6, 1840, 
son of George and Margaret (Hathaway) Anthony. 
He was educated in the public schools, and was 
trained to the avocation of farming, which he has 
successfully followed. He has served in public life 
as a member of the School Committee and Town 
Council of Middletown. as Representative to the 
General Assembly, and as Sheriff of Newport 



County, which office he now holds. In politics he 
is a Republican. Mr. Anthony is a member of 
Coronet Council, No. 63, Royal Arcanum, and of 
Aquidneck Grange, Patrons of Husbandry, of Mid- 




-^ 



JAMES ANTHONY. 



dletown. He was married, February 24, 1869, to 
Miss Charlotte S. Coggeshall ; they have two chil- 
dren : Arthur R. and Alfred C. Anthony. 



ATVVOOD, Henry Clinton, Providence, was 
born in the village of Williamsville, Killingly, Conn., 
February 12, 1856, son of William A. and Caroline 
A. (Hargraves) Atwood. His education was ac- 
quired in the Williamsville grammar and Danielson, 
Conn., high schools, the Friends' School and Uni- 
versity Grammar School of Providence, and at 
Brown LTniversity, from which he graduated in 
1878. Following graduation he had charge of the 
Williams\ille Manufacturing Company's store until 
1881, when he assumed the position of Superin- 
tendent of the company's mills. In 1886 he was 
made Agent and Superintendent, and in 1890 be- 
came Treasurer, Agent and Superintendent, in 
which capacity he has served until the present 
time. He is also a Director and Trustee of the 
Windham County Savings Bank. Mr. Atwood is a 
member of the New England Cotton Manufacturers' 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



155 



Association, the Textile Club of Boston, the" Hope, 
Union and Athletic clubs of Providence, the Prov- 
idence Board of Trade and the Rhode Island Busi- 
ness Men's Association. He is also prominent in 
Masonry. In politics he is a Republican, and was 




H. C. AT WOOD. 

a member of the Legislature in 1888 and of the 
School Board of Killingly four years. He was mar- 
ried in 1878 to Miss Lillian B. Whitford ; they have 
two children : Clinton William and Harold Brad- 
ford Atwood. 



BABCOCK, Joseph Alonzo, Secretary and 
Treasurer of the Dixon Granite Works, Westerly, is 
the seventh in descent from John Babcock, second 
son of James, who with his family emigrated from 
England in 1630 and settled in New England. He 
therefore comes from lineage well represented in the 
struggles waged in behalf of civil and religious liberty, 
on account of which many fled to seek a refuge upon 
these shores. At the session of the General Assem- 
bly of Rhode Island, held on the first Monday in 
July, 1780, "both Houses being resolved into a 
grand committee," with other officers chosen to fill 
up the vacancies in Col. Christopher Greene's regi- 
ment, his great-grandfather, Ichabod Babcock, Jr., 
was elected Cornet of a Troop of Horse ; and it was 
" recommended to His Excellency General Washing- 



ton to commission them accordingly." His grand- 
father, Joseph Babcock, son of Ichabod, Jr., and Es- 
ther (Stanton) Babcock, was born April i, 1762, and 
married Sarah, daughter of Christopher Babcock, 
Esq, August 10, 1782; he died in Westerly of 
smallpox, December 22, 1796, in the thirty-fifth 
year of his age. His father, Joseph Stanton Bab- 
cock, son of Joseph and Sarah Babcock, was born 
in Westerly, June 3, 1792 ; when a small boy he re- 
moved with his mother and other members of the 
family to Otsego county. New York; in 1825 he 
settled in Cannonsville, a small village on the banks 
of the Delaware river, in Delaware county, N. Y., 
and May 10, 1827, he married Abby, daughter of 




J. A. BABCOCK. 

John Owens, a prominent citizen of that locality; 
here he passed the remainder of his life, highly re- 
spected by all who knew him, because of his spot- 
less character, and here he died February 5, 1855. 
In this retired and picturesque little village Joseph 
Alonzo Babcock was born March 9, 1833. He re- 
ceived his education in the public schools and in 
the Delaware Literary Institute at Franklin, N. Y. 
At twenty years of age, in 1853, he came to West- 
erly and was soon engaged as teacher in the public 
schools, receiving his first certificate from Rev. 
Thomas H. Vail (afterwards Bishop of Kansas), 
Rev. Frederick Denison and Rev. A. L. Whitman, 
who were at that time the town school committee. 



156 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



He has continued to cherish the liveliest interest in 
the schools of the town, and the opinions which he 
entertains concerning matters of education always 
command respectful attention. When the call for 
three hundred thousand volunteers was issued by 
the President, in the summer of 1862, he enHsted 
" for three years, or during the war," and was 
mustered into the service August 8, by Captain 
Silva, at Providence. He joined Troop A, First 
Rhode Island Cavalry, and first answered at roll- 
call in Poolville, Maryland. He was in the ranks 
during the march to Falmouth, when the regiment 
was constantly on the flanks of the army and doing 
picket duty. During the battle of Fredericksburg, 
the regiment was sent to Dumfries to protect the 
trains. From this time until the March following, 
the regiment was engaged in hazardous out-post 
duty, rendered doubly trying by the severity of the 
weather. March 10, 1863, he was promoted to a 
position on the non-commissioned staff. In May 
he was with the regiment at Chancellorsville, in 
June at Brandy Station and Middleburg, and on the 
17th, when the fight was raging with the rear guard 
of Stewart's command, he was prostrate on the 
ground with typhoid fever. Unable to ride his 
horse he was placed in an army wagon, and finally 
reached Alexandria, Virginia. For a month and a 
half he received in his tent the attentions of Dr. 
Albert Utter, the Assistant Surgeon of the regiment, 
but when, about the ist of August, the regiment 
having been recruited and new horses provided, it 
was ordered to rejoin the Army of the Potomac at 
Warrentown, he was unable to proceed, and was 
sent to the Queen Street Hospital in Alexandria, 
where he was admitted August 8, 1863. Perhaps 
no war and no government had ever before devel- 
oped a more perfect and efficient hospital service 
than that which then ministered to the Army of the 
Potomac ; and added to this, the constant attend- 
ance of his wife at his bedside for two months 
made it possible for him to receive his discharge 
from this hospital October 6, 1863, though he 
carried with him a surgeon's certificate of disability. 
Inheriting a sound body he entered the service in 
splendid health, and at the expiration of fourteen 
months found himself at home a shadow of his 
former self, with his right limb paralyzed from the 
effects of the fever, and remained an invalid for 
more than two years. His love for the old regi- 
ment still remains, and he is now a member of the 
First Rhode Island Cavalry Veteran Association, 
and was elected its President in 1890. He joined 



Vincent Post, No. 6, Grand Army of the Republic> 
upon its formation in Westerly in 1867, and re- 
mained a member until it surrendered its charter 
and was disbanded in 1870. When Budlong Post, 
No. 18, was instituted in 1874, he became a mem- 
ber, and has always remained in sympathy with the 
objects and purposes of the order. In 1877 he was 
Aide-de-Camp on the staff of the Department 
Commander; in 1879 was Senior Vice-Commander 
of Budlong Post; in 1885 was elected Post Com- 
mander, and by unanimous re-elections held the 
office for four years. He then peremptorily de- 
clined a fifth election, but after an interval of one 
year, he consented to again accept the office and 
was unanimously elected. He was elected Captain 
in the Westerly Rifles in 1872, and served two 
years, when he resigned to accept the position of 
Chief of Staff in the Third Brigade, with the rank 
of Major, which he held for four years ; and when 
the militia was reorganized into one brigade, he 
was elected and commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel, 
and commanded the Third BattaHon from 1879 to 
1 88 1. In politics he is a staunch Republican. In 
1873 he was elected a Representative to the Gen- 
eral Assembly of Rhode Island, and was re-elected 
in 1876 and 1877. He served on the committees 
on Education and Militia, and during his last term 
was Chairman of the latter. He was Trial Justice 
of the Justice Court of the town of Westerly from 
1881 to 1884, when other engagements compelled 
him to place his resignation in the hands of the 
Governor; was trustee of School District Number 
One from 1885 to 1889, and Chairman during the 
last two years; is now, and has been since 1890, a 
member of the town School Committee, and is at 
present Clerk of the board. He was Moderator of 
the Westerly fire district from 1878 to 1891, and is 
now, and has been since 1882, Moderator of the 
town of Westerly. He has long been prominent in 
Masonic circles. He is a member and Past Com- 
mander of Franklin Lodge, No. 20, Ancient Free 
and Accepted Masons ; is a member and has 
served as High Priest of Palmer Chapter No. 28, 
Royal Arch Masons ; is a member, and is reckoned 
among the earliest m the list of Eminent Com- 
manders, of Narragansett Commandery No. 27, 
Knights Templar. Among Masons he is recog- 
nized as one who makes thorough preparation for 
work ; his literary culture and tenacious memory se- 
cure for him a mastery in all declamatory parts, 
while the preciseness and freedom with which he 
delivers the splendid ritual contribute to make it 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



157 



most impressive. Mr. Babcock is not less known 
and respected as a religious man. He is connected 
with the First Baptist Church in Westerly, and for 
twenty-two years has been Secretary of its Corpora- 
tion. He has been repeatedly elected Superintend- 
ent of the Sunday School, and as teacher for many 
years has held with unflagging interest a large class 
in the study of that book of which he is not 
ashamed. At the beginning of the Fifty-second 
Congress, in December, 1891, he went to Washing- 
ton as Private Secretary to United States Senator 
Nathan F. Dixon, and soon after became Clerk to 
the Senate Committee on Patents. His term of 
service there closed with the final adjournment of 
the Fifty- third Congress, in March, 1895, when he 
returned to his Rhode Island home. As an ac- 
countant he has been connected with some of the 
largest manufacturing establishments in Westerly, 
and he is now the Secretary and Treasurer of the 
Dixon Granite Works. Mr. Babcock was married, 
September i, 1856, to Miss EHzabeth M., eldest 
daughter of Isaac C. Burdick of Westerly, who was 
also a teacher, and who in intellectual pursuits has 
always thoroughly shared his tastes and inclinations ; 
they have had two children : Edward H., born 
November 21, 1857, and Mary A., born June 10, 
i860, who died in Washington, D. C, January 20, 
1892. 



BABBITT, Edward Spaulding, insurance agent, 
Providence, was born on Mount Pleasant farm, one 
mile east of Bristol, R. I., July 20, 1829, son of 
Jacob and Abby E. (Briggs) Babbitt. Jacob 
Babbitt was the son of Jacob Babbitt, who removed 
from Taunton, Mass , to Bristol the latter part of 
the last century, and was there a silversmith, then 
in the general mercantile business, and subsequently 
engaged in the manufacture of cotton goods. Abby 
E. Briggs was the daughter of Dr. Lemuel W. 
Briggs, who removed from Middleboro, Mass., to 
Bristol early in the century ; he was the son of 
Lemuel W. Briggs of Middleboro. E. S. Babbitt 
received his early education in private schools in 
Bristol, and took a two years' course in Brown 
University from 1845 to 1847, since which time his 
life has ever been that of an active business man. 
Removing to Boston in 1852, he became junior 
partner in the firm of Page, Briggs & Babbitt, large 
importers of metals and other supplies for ship- 
building and ma( hine shop purposes, during which 
time he was also interested with his father in the 



rebuilding and operating of a cotton mill in his 
native town, under the name of the Pokanoket 
Steam Mill Company. In 1863 he became the 
manager and executive officer of the City Insurance 
Company, of Providence, continuing in that capacity 
until 1880, when the company retired from business, 
dividing to its stockholders more than the par value 
of its stock. From that time forward he has main- 
tained a most successful insurance agency in that 
city. He was elected a member of the school 
committee of Bristol, in which town he resides, in 
1884, and now holds that office. He was elected 
a trustee of the Juniper Hill Cemetery in 1865 and 
still holds that position. From an early age he was 




EDWARD S. BABBITT. 

connected with St. Michael's Church at Bristol. 
On his removal to Boston he became vestryman of 
the Church of the Messiah and delegate to the 
Diocesan Convention. Since his return to Bristol 
in 1863 he has served St. Michael's Church as ves- 
tryman, clerk, warden, and as delegate to the Di- 
ocesan Convention from that time to the present. 
Like his father and grandfather he has expressed 
the Democratic belief in politics, but was never so 
bound to the party as to feel compelled to vote for 
its candidate, always claiming the right to cast his 
ballot for the most reliable man. He was kept 
from active service in the war of the Rebellion by 
the enlistment of his father and the subsequent 



158 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



death of the latter, events which rendered his 
presence at home absolutely necessary for the care 
and settlement of the estate. He was however 
alive to the wants of those at the front and did 
much in obtaining and providing means for the 
Christian Commissions. While in Boston he was 
active in the Young Men's Christian Association, 
and on his return home, with the aid of others, 
organized one in Bristol, which has done much 
successful labor among the young men of that place. 
He married, January 4, 1853, Miss Arselia, daughter 
of Daniel N. Morris; they have no children living. 
At his death and that of his sister, the name of 
Babbitt, which has held a prominent position in 
Bristol for a century, will cease to be known there. 



BALLOU, Charles Olney, M. D., Providence, 
was born at Cumberland Hill, R. I., June 10, 1830, 
son of Barton and Sarah (Rathbone) Ballou. He 




C. O. BALLOU. 

is a descendant in the sixth generation from Maturin 
Ballou, who was a contemporary of Roger Williams 
in the first settlement of Providence. His father. 
Barton Eallou, was born at the old Ballou home- 
stead in Cumberland, was graduated at Brown 
University in the class of 1813, and acquired promi- 
nence as a citizen of the town and state. His 
mother was a native of Wickford, North Kingston, 



R. I., his maternal grandparents being Abraham 
Borden and Deborah (Cook) Rathbone. His early 
education was acquired in the public schools, sup- 
plemented by a course at an academic school in 
Dudley, Mass. He taught school several years in 
Massachusetts and Rhode Island, his occupations 
prior to the war being teaching and farming, and 
clerking in drygoods stores in Providence, R. I., 
and Detroit, Mich. In 1861 he enlisted in Com- 
pany I, Eleventh Rhode Island Regiment Volunteers, 
and was in active service some eleven months, 
returning home early in 1863. From about 1864 
he was engaged for the next ten years in the manu- 
facture of cotton goods at Weare, N. H., where he 
was a member of the School Committee three years. 
Representative to the General Court at Concord 
two years, Justice of the Peace, and active in town 
matters and to some extent in politics. In 1874 
he returned to Providence to reside, and entered 
the Medical Department of Harvard University. In 
earlier Hfe he had studied medicine with Dr. Ballou 
of Woonsocket, but not having the means to pursue 
a thorough medical course, his professional aspir- 
ations were temporarily set aside, and meanwhile 
having entered into commercial business, his 
entrance upon a medical career was postponed be- 
yond his expectations. Graduating from the Har- 
vard Medical School in June 1877, he at once 
commenced practice in Providence, where he has 
now been established nineteen years. Dr. Ballou is 
a member of the Rhode Island Medical Society and 
the Providence Medical Association, also of Rising 
Sun Lodge of Masons, the United Order of Amer- 
ican Mechanics and the Grand Army of the Repub- 
lic. In politics he is a Republican. He was mar- 
ried, November 17, 1857, to Miss Sarah Emily, 
daughter of Welcome and Seriah Olney Darling of 
Providence ; they have two daughters : Anna Dar- 
ling and Kate Stuart, the latter now the wife of 
William G. Payton of Providence. 



BARKER, Henry Rodman, Mayor of Provi- 
dence for two terms, 1 889-1 890, was born in Prov- 
idence, September 15, 1841, son of William C. and 
Sarah A. (Jenks) Barker. His father came from 
Newport about 18 10, and was a member of the first 
city government of Providence. He is a descend- 
ant of John ' Barker of Harwich, England, who 
married Elizabeth Hill, sister of Sir Rowland Hill, 
first protestant Lord Mayor of London (1549), and 
whose grandson James Barker sailed on the ship 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



159 



Mary and John from Southampton in March 1634, 
and settled in Rhode Island, at Newport, in 1639. 
James Barker was Assistant Deputy Governor for 
many years, also Deputy Governor, and he with 
his son James occupied one of these ofifices for 
a period of about twenty-five years ; he was fre- 
quently associated on committees with Roger Wil- 
liams, Governor Coddington, Governor Benedict 
Arnold and other noted men of the times, and his 
name appears in a royal charter granted by King 
Charles Second. Mr. Barker is also descended 
from Nicholas Easton and John Coggeshall of New- 
port, and Giles Slocum, Thomas Lawton and 
Richard Borden of Portsmouth, the early settlers. 




HENRY R. BARKER. 

On his mother's side he comes from the noted 
Jencks family of northern Rhode Island. He re- 
ceived his early education in the public schools of 
Providence, graduating from the high school in 
1859. Immediately following graduation he entered 
the office of the Providence Mutual Fire Insurance 
Company, and since 1883 he has been President 
and Treasurer of that corporation. In 1864 he 
entered into the insurance agency business with J. 
T. Snow, which business is still continued by Mr. 
Barker, under the same firm name, Mr. Snow hav- 
ing died in 1883. Besides his insurance business 
and connections, Mr. Barker is President of the 
Rhode Island Investment Company, a corporation 



owning large business properties in Providence, 
and of the Roger Williams Savings Fund Loan As- 
sociation, a very successful institution having assets 
invested in mortgages in the city of Providence 
and its immediate vicinity to the extent of about a 
milhon dollars. He is also a Director in the In- 
dustrial Trust Company, the Rhode Island Electric 
Protective Company and the Narragansett Electric 
Lighting Company, is Vice-President of the Old 
Colony Co-operative Bank, and has been for several 
years President of the Insurance Association of 
Providence, an organization formed of the under- 
writers of the city. Mr. Barker was a member of 
the Common Council of Providence from 1873 to 
1880, and of the Board of Aldermen from 1880 to 
1883; in 1879 he was unanimously elected Presi- 
dent of the Council, and in 1882 was elected with 
similar unanimity to the Presidency of the Alder- 
manic Board. He served as Mayor of Providence 
two terms, from January 1889 to January 1891, and 
has been a Commissioner of Sinking Funds of the 
city from the latter date. He is a charter member 
of Corinthian Lodge of Masons, and was its Master 
in 1872-73; is a member of Calvary Commandery 
Knights Templar, and was its Commander in 1889- 
90, and is a Thirty-second Degree Mason. He is a 
charter member of Slocum Post No. 10, Grand 
Army of the Republic, of which he was Commander 
in 1870-71-72 and has been Quartermaster twenty- 
four terms. In 1879 ^e was elected Commander 
of the Department of Rhode Island G. A. R. In 
politics he is a Republican. Mr. Barker was mar- 
ried, October 24, 1864, to Miss Annie C. Tripp of 
New Bedford, Mass. ; they have two children : 
Henry A. and Jessie L. Barker. 



BARN A BY, Abnkr Jones, merchant, and many 
years a prominent citizen of Providence, was born 
in Freetown, Bristol county, Mass., May 23, 1834, 
son of Stephen and Lucy (Hathaway) Barnaby, 
and died in Providence, June 29, 1882. He was a 
descendant in the sixth generation of Jamee Barnaby, 
one of the early settlers of Plymouth colony. 
James Barnaby married, in 1664, Lydia Warren 
Bartlett, daughter of William Bartlett of Plymouth, 
who arrived at that place in 1623, a passenger in the 
ship Mary and Ann; William Bartlett's wife, Mary 
Warren, came to Plymouth in 1620 with her father, 
Richard Warren, in the Mayflower. Abner J. 
Barnaby attended the district school of his native 
town until the age of fourteen, when he became a 



i6o 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



student in the Mount Hope Academy at Fall River, 
and afterward pursued a course at Pierce Academy 
in Middleboro, Mass., from which he graduated in 
1853. Following graduation he taught school at 
Westport, Mass., for a time, and then removed to 
Providence and entered upon mercantile life, being 
employed for six years by his brother, J. B. Barnaby, 
in the clothing business. In 1861 he started for 
himself in the clothing trade, and established a 
large and successful business in the location where 
he continued up to the time of his death in 1882. 
Mr. Barnaby's interest and labors were not, however, 
limited to the demands of his private business. 
His nature was social and public-spirited ; he was 




ABNER J. BARNABY. 

possessed of strong political principles and views as 
to governmental policy in municipal affairs, and the 
popular appreciation of his sturdy integrity and 
business ability brought him at an early period of 
his career into activity and prominence in public 
affairs. He was elected to the Common Council in 
1866, and held his seat uninterruptedly for twelve 
years, in 1876 serving as President of that body. 
The following year, 1877, he was the Democratic 
candidate for Mayor, the first election resulting in a 
tie vote, notwithstanding the city was strongly Re- 
publican ; a second election was necessary, which 
resulted in the election of Mayor Doyle by less than 
fifty majority. In 1879 he was elected Alderman 



from the Fourth Ward, and for several years he 
served as Chairman of the Democratic State Cen- 
tral Committee. Mr. Barnaby was a thorough and 
steadfast Democrat, but won and held the respect 
and esteem of both parties by being upright and 
honorable in his political life, as in his business 
career. A writer of the period says of him : " Mr. 
Barnaby did a great deal to uphold and strengthen 
the Democratic party in Rhode Island. In muni- 
cipal matters he showed rare discriminating sense 
and keen insight, and in business affairs manifested 
great enterprise and tact. He was for years cham- 
pion of the West Side in the long and determined 
controversy over the location of the City Hall. In 
this as in every other public question he represented 
the interests of his constituents with assiduous and 
unfailing fidelity, and many a weary hour he talked 
against time to prevent a vote, when the other side 
happened by some chance to have a majority 
present. But no matter how long his speeches, 
Mr. Barnaby was always listened to with pleasure, 
for his voice was pleasing, his style attractive, his 
eloquence effective and his words to the point." 
Mr. Barnaby was a Mason, and was a member of 
the First Light Infantry since 1858 and of the 
United Train of Artillery since 1862. He was 
married, December 31, 1863, to Miss Jennie 
Wallace, daughter of Dr. Merrick Wallace, a prom- 
inent physician of Ashburnham, Mass. ; they had 
four children : Philenia A , Grace E., Jennie W. 
and Fannie L. Barnaby. 



BIXBY, Reverend Moses Homans, A. M., D. D., 
Pastor for twenty-six years of the Cranston Street 
Baptist Church, Providence, was born in Warren, 
N. H , August 20, 1827, son of Benjamin and Mary 
(Cleasby) Bixby. He was the fifth of eight sons, 
of whom five were preachers. He united with the 
church at the age of twelve, and feeling called to 
the gospel ministry, he entered at once upon a 
preparatory course of study. He was the youngest 
theological student that e\'er entered the Biblical 
Institute, now Boston University. At sixteen he 
was a Sunday-school superintendent, and at seven- 
teen was licensed to preach the gospel. For several 
years he paid his way by teaching vocal music, and 
he was never aided by any education society or 
church during the twelve years of his preparatory 
studies. He was ordained pastor of a church in 
Vermont at twenty two, and continued in the pas- 
toral office about four years. In January 1853 he 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



l6l 



sailed for Burmah as a missionary of the American 
Baptist Missionary Union. Stopping on the way at 
Cape Town, South Africa, and being detained there 
a month, he preached repeatedly to a little company 
of believers, who were soon after organized into a 
Baptist church, and it is said that more than twenty 
Baptist churches have since been formed there. 
He reached Maulmain, Burmah, in June 1853, 
where he found the English church without a pastor 
and wellnigh extinct. Within a few months, under 
his preaching, the chapel was filled, and the mem- 
bership increased from nine to forty-five. After 
this he travelled extensively for several years in the 
Tenasserim and Martaban provinces, preaching the 




M. H. BIXBY. 

gospel to many thousands. But the failing health 
of his wife compelled him to return to this country, 
and he landed at New York only to see his beloved 
helpmate breathe her last before they could pos- 
sibly reach home. In 1857 he became Pastor of 
the Friendship Street Baptist Church in Providence, 
where he remained over three years and where his 
labors were greatly blessed, one hundred and 
seventy-six members being added during his pas- 
torate. But his pastoral relations were always held 
in subjection to the cherished purpose of his life, 
and as soon as a door was opened for him to re- 
enter the field of foreign missions, he at once 
embraced it. In the fall of i860 Mr. Bixby was 



recalled to Burmah, and was appointed to open a 
new mission to the Shans. Sailing via England and 
the Red Sea, he entered the field early in 186 1. 
Just before he reached Burmah, ten thousand Shans, 
driven out of the Shan States by war, came in a 
body to Toungoo and settled near his destined 
home. Encouraged by this providence, he entered 
with great earnestness upon the work of the new 
mission, nor did he labor in vain. Success imme- 
diately followed, and continued from year to year ; 
the chief's son was soon converted, and converts 
were multiplied, churches were formed, and a train- 
ing school was established. In eight years Mr. 
Bixby travelled extensively over various provinces, 
far into the interior and among savage tribes, often 
in great peril, but always with marked tokens of 
Divine favor. These labors and exposures, how- 
ever, proved too much for his naturally robust con- 
stitution, and at length his health broke down and 
he was again compelled to return to this country. 
He left his family behind, fully intending to go 
back ; but after a year all hope of his resuming 
missionary work in that climate being abandoned, 
his family was called home. For ten successive 
years he was a sufferer from Burmah fever, but he 
finally regained his health, and after more than a 
quarter of a century of service in the home field, is 
now able to do as much work as at any period in 
his life. Under his supervision was gathered and 
organized the Cranston Street Baptist Church in 
Providence, over which his pastorate has continued 
uninterruptedly to the present time. In the incip- 
ient stages of the enterprise the responsibility rested 
upon him alone. Seeing the possibilities of the 
field, he personally assumed large pecuniary obliga- 
tions for a church lot, in September 1869, and in 
three months completed a chapel with a seating 
capacity of five hundred. This building was en- 
larged three times within ten years. In January 
1870 the Sunday-school was opened with thirty- 
five members, and in the following October the 
church was organized with fifty-six members. A 
new, beautiful and commodious house of worship 
was dedicated in November 1893, and in January 
1895 the twenty-fifth anniversary of the church 
Sunday-school and pastorate was fittingly celebrated. 
The results of these twenty-five years of labor are 
seen in three houses of worship, two for the home 
work and one for a vigorous out- station ; two 
Sunday-schools, numbering nearly a thousand 
members ; and an addition of eleven hundred and 
sixty-five to the church, of which seven hundred 



I62 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



and twenty-seven were by experience and baptism. 
Dr. Bixby's labors have not, however, been" con- 
fined to his church alone, he having given counsel 
and help to many others, and surpervised the build- 
ing of four churches besides his own. He is pre- 
eminently the friend of young people and deeply 
interested in whatever tends to uplift the rising 
generation. For fifteen years he has been a mem- 
ber of the School Committee, and it was through 
his efforts that the normal music course was intro- 
duced into the schools of Providence. Fourteen 
successive years he was chosen President of the 
Rhode Island Baptist Education Society, and only 
resigned on account of the pressure of other duties. 
Thirty young men and twenty young women have 
gone from his church to college. He is a trustee 
of Brown University, Newton Theological Seminary, 
Hartshorn Memorial College at Richmond, Va , 
and Worcester Academy ; also a member of the 
executive committee of the last named institution. 
Dr. Bixby is even more vigorous now in the ministry 
than in his earlier years, and is preaching to larger 
congregations than ever before. He is in his 
twenty-seventh year with the Cranston Street 
Church, and the thirtieth year of pastoral work in 
the city of Providence. Dr. Bixby was married, in 
November 1849, to Miss Susan C. Dow, of Maiden, 
Vt., who died in Burlington, Vt., in August 1856, 
ten days after her arrival from Burmah. He was 
married again, in 1857, to Miss Laura A. Gage, 
principal of the New Hampton Ladies' Seminary, 
who has since shared his labors and successes. 
His daughter Jennie, born in Maulmain, in 1855, is 
the wife of Rev. Freeman Johnson, M. D., missionary 
in Toungoo, Burmah. His son, Ernest Merle, born 
in Toungoo, Burmah, is the founder and head of 
the Bixby Silver Company of Providence, R. I. 



BOSWORTH, Benjamin Miller, Justice of the 
District Court of the Fifth Judicial District, was 
born in Warren, R. L, January 17, 1848, and has 
resided there continuously since. His father was 
Benjamin Miller Bosworth, son of Peleg Bosworth, 
and his mother was Elizabeth Luther, daughter of 
Martin Luther. His ancestry on both sides is 
Colonial and Revolutionary. His early education 
was obtained in the public schools of Warren. He 
prepared for college at the Warren High School, 
but did not enter, pursuing his studies instead with 
Isaac F. Cady, and teaching school for two years. 
He studied law with Judge Richard Ward Greene 



and later with Thomas C. Greene, Esq., in the 
meantime teaching evening school, was admitted to 
practice law before the state courts in Rhode Isl- 
and, in August 1873, at East Greenwich, and sub- 
sequently was admitted to practice in the United 
States courts. He commenced his legal career in 
Providence, and since his admission to the bar has 
been engaged in active practice. He was Trial 
Justice of Warren from 1874 to 1876, Assistant 
Attorney General from May 1882 to March 1895, 
and has been Justice of the District Court of the 
Fifth Judicial District since 1886. Judge Bosworth 
has also served the public in various other official 
capacities. He was a Representative from Warren 




B. M. BOSWORTH. 

in the General Assembly of the State from May 
1880 to October 1882, and again in 1885 and 1886 ; 
a member of the School Committee of Warren for 
more than twenty years, acting as Chairman and 
Superintendent for five years ; delegate from Riiode 
Island to the Republican National Convention in 
Chicago which nominated President Harrison in 
1888; was Town Solicitor of Lincoln from 1891 to 
1895, and upon the establishment of the city of 
Central Falls, became and now is City Solicitor. 
He has been actively interested in military affairs, 
serving as Judge Advocate of brigade on the staffs 
of Gen. Thomas W. Chace and Gen. Elisha H. 
Rhodes, and as Adjutant, Captain and Colonel of 




A 




(_>' . V-fcI<'-z--«''J'-i-'<-— ' 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



163 



the Warren Artillery. He is a member of Wash- 
ington Lodge No. 3, F. A. M., of Warren, twice 
serving as Master j of Temple Chapter and Webb 
Council, of Warren, having occupied the highest 
office in both bodies ; and of Calvary Commandery 
Knights Templar, Providence. He is also, a mem- 
ber of Union Club of Warren, the Rhode Island 
Business Men's Association of Providence, the 
Providence Athletic Association, and the George 
Hail Free Library, of which last named institution 
he is one of the original corporate members, and 
has been since 1873 its President. In poHtics he 
is a Republican, and active in town and state affairs. 
Judge Bosworth has been especially active in all 
matters pertaining to the improvement of his native 
town, — the introduction of water and electricity, 
macadamized streets, etc, and the erection of pub- 
lic buildings, being chairman of the building com- 
mittees of the beautiful granite Library Building and 
the Town Building recently erected in Warren. 
He is also active in business affairs, being a director 
in the Warren Trust Company, the Warren Gaslight 
Company and the Bristol and Warren Water Works. 
He was married, March 17, 1875, to Miss Mary M. 
Cole of Warren ; they have no children. 



BOURN, Augustus Osborn, Governor of Rhode 
Island in 1883-85, was born in Providence, October 
I, 1834, son of George O. and Hudah B. (Eddy) 
Bourn. He is descended in direct line from Jared 
Bourn, who came to this country from England 
about 1630, removed from Boston to Portsmouth, 
R. I., and in 1654-55 was a deputy from that town 
in the Colonial Legislature ; at the time of King 
Philip's War he had a garrison house on what is now 
Gardner's Neck, in Swansea, Mass., in which the 
settlers from the neighborhood took refuge. In 
other ancestral lines he is descended on the pater- 
nal side from the Bowens, Braytons, Wheatons, 
Carpenters, Chases, Shermans, Tripps, Paines, Sterns, 
Gibsons, Beckets, Blys, Gotts and other prominent 
colonial families, and on the maternal side from the 
Eddys, Ides, Blandings, Coopers, Walkers, Peck- 
hams, Greenes, Clarkes, Weedens and others. 
Among them were Francis Brayton, one of the 
founders of Portsmouth, R. I. ; Robert Wheaton, 
Richard Bowen, Nicholas Ide, Thomas Cooper, Jr., 
Philip Walker and William Blanding, among the 
original settlers of Rehoboth, Mass. ; Samuel Eddy, 
one of the early settlers of Plymouth, and the son 
of Rev. William Eddy, Vicar of St. Dunstan's, Cran- 



brook, Kent, England ; William Chase, the ances- 
tor in this country of the well-known Chase family ; 
Philip Sherman, Anthony Paine, John Peckham, 
James Weeden, John Greene, Jeremiah Clarke and 
John Tripp, among the founders of Portsmouth and 
Newport, R. I., and well-known as very prominent 
citizens of their time ; and Charles Sterns, John 
Gibson, John Becket, John Ely and Charles Gott, 
among the earliest settlers of Massachusetts Bay, 
Charles Gott being the first deacon of the church in 
Salem. Augustus O. Bourn received his early edu- 
cation in the public schools of Providence, passing 
through the various grades from the primary to the 
High School, and entered Brown University in 185 1, 
graduating in 1855 with the degree of Master of Arts. 
Immediately after leaving college he went into 
business with his father, who was one of the firm of 
Bourn, Brown & Chaffee, Providence, manufacturers 
of rubber shoes, and, with the exception of some six 
years spent in Europe, he has been engaged in 
that business continuously ever since. He is now 
manufacturing rubber shoes in Providence as sole 
proprietor of a large establishment at Nos. 53 to 63 
Westfield Street. He was Senator for Bristol in 
the Rhode Island Legislature from 1876 to 1883. 
During his first term he was a member of the Com- 
mittee on Finance, and for the remaining five years 
was its Chairman, and also a member of the Com- 
mittee on the Judiciary. In 1883 he was elected 
Governor and served two successive terms as chief 
executive of the State. He was also Senator for 
Bristol from 1886 to 1888, but was excused from 
serving on any regular committees during that time. 
In 1889 he was appointed Consul-General of the 
United States for Italy, at Rome, which position he 
held until 1893. Governor Bourn has travelled ex- 
tensively abroad, in Cuba, Mexico, England, France, 
Germany, Holland, Spain, Italy and Morocco, and 
is well versed ni the French, German, Italian and 
Spanish languages. He was the author of the 
" Bourn Amendment " to the Constitution of Rhode 
Island, which granted to foreign-born citizens the 
right to vote on the same terms as those who are 
native born ; he introduced the Act into the Senate, 
and was chairman of the Joint Special Committee 
to which the Act and others to the same or similar 
effect were referred. In politics he is a Republican, 
but was elected Senator the first four or five terms 
without opposition. He was for a long time inter- 
ested in military matters, having joined the Provi- 
dence Horse Guards about 1861, and held every 
position from private to major, and served as 



164 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Lieutenant Colonel in the Battalion of Rhode 
Island Cavalry. He is a member of numerous clubs 
and societies, among others the Phi Beta Kappa of 
Brown University, What Cheer Lodge of Masons, 
and Calvary Commandery of Knights Templar. 
Governor Bourn was married, February 24, 1863, to 
Miss Elizabeth Roberts Morrill, daughter of David 

C. and Mary (Wentworth) Morrill, of Epping, N. H. 
Both the Morrill and Wentworth families have been, 
from the beginning, very prominent in the history 
of New Hampshire, and also of Maine, Vermont 
and Massachusetts. They have four children : 
Augustus O., Jr., born May 7, 1865, educated at 
Providence in the University Grammar School and 
Brown University, studied law at Harvard Law 
School and Columbian University, Washington, 

D. C, from which latter he graduated with the de- 
gree of Bachelor of Laws, and is now practising his 
profession at Denver, Col. ; Stephen Wentworth, 
born April 5, 1877, now in Brown University ; Eliza 
beth R. and Alice M. W. Bourn, the former study- 
ing music in Vienna, and the latter living at home 
with her parents at Bristol, Rhode Island. 



BOYLE, Patrick Joseph, Mayor of Newport 
in 1895 and 1896, was born in Newport, March 8, 




schools of his native city, and pursued a classical 
course under the tuition of the Rev. P. Grace, 
D. D. Since the age of seventeen, or from 1877, he 
has been engaged in business as bookkeeper and 
confidential clerk for the Newport Gaslight Com- 
pany. Mr. Boyle has always taken an active 
interest in public affairs, and has served his city on 
all important committees in both branches of the 
municipal government. He was a member of the 
Common Council for six years, 1885-92 inclusive, 
acting as President of that body in the latter year, 
served two terms as Alderman in 1893-94, and was 
elected Mayor in 1895 and again in 1896. He is 
a Democrat in politics, and is serving his second 
successive term as Chairman of the Democratic 
City Committee. Mayor Boyle is an active mem- 
ber of the Newport Commerical Club and the 
Robert Emmet Association. He was married, 
January 17, 1894, to Miss Anna Frances Gatzen- 
meier; they have one child : Patrick Boyle. 



p. J. BOYLE 



i860, son of Patrick and Barbara '(Conroy) Boyle. 
He received his early education in the parochial 



BROWN, Colonel Will Edwin, Colonel of the 
Kentish Guards of East Greenwich, and Senior Colo- 
nel of Rhode Island Militia, was born in North 
Kingston, May 22, 1854, son of Ed\vin and Sybil 
(Spencer) Brown. His grandparents on the pater- 
nal side were John and Abby (Adams) Brown, and 
on the maternal side Job and Rebecca (Briggs) 
Spencer. He is a descendant in the ninth genera- 
tion of John Spencer, who landed at Newburyport, 
Mass., in 1633, and came to Newport, R. I., in 1677, 
and whose son, Thomas Spencer, was the first white 
child born in East Greenwich. His great-great- 
grandfather Benjamin Spencer was a charter mem- 
ber of the Kentish Guards, organized in 1774, and 
served with them through the war of the Revolution. 
On the father's side he is descended from Chad 
Brown, who landed at Boston in 1638, and came to 
Providence in the same year. His great-great- 
grandfather Colonel Robert Brown, who was the 
great-great-grandson of Chad, served with distinction 
through the Revolution, defeating Captain Wallace 
of King George's fleet off Newport, for which he 
was publicly thanked by the General Assembly of 
Rhode Island. The Colonial History gives consid- 
erable space to his deeds. He is also a direct 
descendant (great-great-grandson) of Major Eben- 
ezer Adams, who came from the Massachusetts 
Adams family, and who was one of the party that 
under command of Colonel Barton entered the 
Prescott camp and captured General Prescott, and 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



165 



who also led a party on Patience Island and captured 
fifteen of His Royal Highness' naval officers. He 
also had a grandfather and two great-uncles in the 
war of 1 81 2, and a great-uncle in the Mexican war. 
Will Edwin Brown was educated in the public schools 
of Portsmouth and East Greenwich, the Highland 
Military Academy of Worcester, Mass., and the 
Commercial Department of the Providence Confer- 
ence Seminary, now known as East Greenwich 
Academy. At the age of manhood, in 1874, he 
became associated with A. W. Place under the firm 
name of Place & Brown, in the house-painting busi- 
ness. Two years later he sold out to his partner, 
and entered the employ of W. H. Hunt & Son. con- 




WILL E. BROWN. 

tinuing this relation three years, then purchasing a 
half interest, and continuing under the name of 
Hunt & Brown. In 1881, A. W. Place bought the 
Hunts' interest and the firm became Brown & Place, 
from which Mr. Brown shortly after retired on ac- 
count of poor health. He afterward became asso- 
ciated with the clothing firm of J. P. Mowry & 
Company as local salesman, subsequently going to 
Attleboro and Marlboro, Mass., in the same capacity 
for the firm. In 1886 he accepted a position with 
the Greenwich Printing Company, with whom he 
was employed until the fall of 1889, when he entered 
the employ of the Adams Express Company, and is 
now serving as their agent at East Greenwich. 



Colonel Brown holds the civil offices of Chief of 
Police and Town Sergeant of East Greenwich, having 
been appointed to the former successively in 1893- 
94-95, and elected to the latter each year since 1892, 
in two instances by a unanimous vote. Upon the 
organization of a volunteer fire department in East 
Greenwich, Mr. Brown took an active interest in its 
affairs and assisted in perfecting its organization, 
volunteering his services as a member, filled a num- 
ber of offices, and at the close of five years' service 
retired as first assistant engineer. He enlisted in 
the Kentish Guards in 1868, and rose through the 
various grades until elected Colonel in 1881, and 
has been unanimously re-elected every year since, 
having been in command longer than any officer 
before him, and making him Senior Colonel of 
Rhode Island Militia. He has also served as First 
Lieutenant and Captain of Company C, Third Bat- 
talion Infantry, First Brigade, and as Major in the 
Third Battalion Brigade, R. I. M., with which rank 
he was. mustered out in July 1881. Besides his 
official membership in the Kentish Guards, he is a 
member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery 
Company of Massachusetts, the Military Service 
Institution of New York, and the Rhode Island Sons 
of the American Revolution. He is also a prominent 
Odd Fellow, having filled nearly all the offices in 
Harmony Lodge of East Greenwich, and serving on 
important committees in the Grand Lodge of Rhode 
Island. In politics he is an Independent, with 
Democratic proclivities. Colonel Brown was mar- 
ried, May 22, 1876, to Miss Harriet Frances Vaughn 
of Warwick, R. I., who died June 16, 1892; they 
had two children, both of whom died at birth. He 
was married, second, January 22, 1896, to Miss Cora 
Jane Smith of Providence. 



BUDLONG, John Clark, M. D., Surgeon- 
General of Rhode Island for nearly twenty years, 
was born in Cranston, R. I , August 28, 1836, son 
of Samuel and Rachel (Martin) Budlong. He is a 
lineal descendant of Francis Budlong, the first of the 
name in the colony of Rhode Island, who with his 
wife and all his family except one child were massa- 
cred by the Indians at the outbreak of King Philip's 
war in 1675 ; his son John, then three or four years 
old, was carried away by the Indians but was 
subsequently rescued and became the owner of 
twenty-five acres of land on Coweset Bay in 1692, 
to which he added at various times until he owned 
a tract of several hundred acres, including Brush 



1 66 



MEN OFfPROGRESS. 



Neck, on which he built the house at present 
owned by Henry VV. Budlong, one of the old- 
est now standing in Warwick. The line of de- 
scent is : Moses, Samuel, Samuel second, Samuel 
third, and John, who is the subject of this sketch. 
Dr. Budlong is also a lineal descendant, in the 
seventh generation, of Roger Williams. His 
mother was descended from Christopher Martin, 
who came over with the founders of Plymouth 
colony in the Mayflower. He attended the district 
school of his native town, and Fruit-Hill Classical 
Institute, from which he graduated valedictorian of 
his class. He then entered Smithville Seminary 
(afterward Lapham Institute) at North Scituate, 




J. C. BUDLONG. 

and pursued a special course preparatory to the 
study of medicine. Instead of entering college he 
devoted five years to his medical course, in 1855 
placing himself under the tuition of Dr. I. W. 
Sawin at Centredale, who enjoyed a high repute as 
a physician, and in 1857 he entered the Homoeo- 
pathic Medical College of Pennsylvania, which later 
was merged into the Hahnemann Medical College. 
At the end of his course he returned home, and 
was unable to resume his studies in Philadelphia 
until 1862, when he completed them and obtained 
his degree of Doctor of Medicine, March 3, 1863. 
The winters of 1857-8 and 1863 he attended clinics 
at the Pennsylvania Hospital and Philadelphia 



Almshouse, and during this time became a private 
pupil of Dr. Agnew, Professor of Surgery in the 
University of Pennsylvania, studying surgical anat- 
omy and operative surgery, and receiving a certifi- 
cate of proficiency in both branches. After gradua- 
tion he was tendered and accepted the assistant charge 
of the College Dispensary. Dr. Budlong intended 
to establish himself in Philadelphia, and opened an 
office in that city, but feeling it his duty to enter 
the government service, he returned to his state to 
take part in the military movements then being 
organized. In July 1863 he enhsted in the Third 
Regiment Rhode Island Cavalry, was immediately 
appointed Assistant Surgeon in charge, and subse- 
quently was advanced to the rank of Surgeon. The 
regiment sailed for New Orleans in December 1863, 
and took part in the Red River campaign, during 
which Dr. Budlong held the positions of Brigade 
and Division Surgeon, and for a time Surgeon in 
Charge of the General Hospital. He remained 
with the army, arranging and systematizing various 
matters connected with the Medical Bureau until 
December 1865, when he was honorably discharged 
Returning to Rhode Island he engaged in practice 
in partnership with his brother-in-law and late 
preceptor, Dr. Sawin, at Centredale, until the 
latter removed to Providence in 1868, since when 
Dr. Budlong has continued the practice. Some 
time after the war he was solicited to join the 
state troops, and having a natural liking for the 
military service, joined the Pawtucket Horse Guards, 
of which he was chosen Surgeon. Later he was 
promoted to Brigade Surgeon of the Second Brigade, 
which position he held several years. In 1875 he 
was elected Surgeon-General of the state, with rank 
of Brigadier-General, being the first homoeopathic 
physician to be accorded this honor in any state, 
and in which capacity he served continuously for 
nineteen years. Dr. Budlong is a member of the 
American Institute of Homoeopathy, is Vice-Presi- 
dent of the National Homoeopathic Medical Society, 
has served one year as Treasurer and two years as 
President of the Rhode Island Homceopathic Med- 
ical Society, and represented his state in the World's 
Homoeopathic Medical Congress held at Philadelphia 
in the centennial year of 1876. He is also an hon- 
orary member of the New York State and Massa- 
chusetts Homceopathic medical societies. He is a 
thirty-second degree Mason, member of the Loyal 
Legion of the Lhiited States, the Grand Army of 
the Republic, the Athletic and Squantum clubs of 
Providence, and associate member of the Military 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



167 



Service Institution of the United States ; he is also 
an active member of the Association of Mihtary 
Surgeons of the United States. He has been for 
many years a communicant and vestryman of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church, of which he is a 
zealous member. In politics he is a Republican, 
but has always declined political honors, which have 
been repeatedly tendered him. He resides in 
Providence. Dr. Budlong was married, June 7, 
1866, to Miss Martha Alexander, daughter of the 
late Professor Walter Williamson of Philadelphia ; 
they have had eight children, of whom only three are 
living : Walter Williamson Budlong, salesman in the 
house of Callender, McAuslan & Troup, Providence ; 
Martin Salisbury Budlong, A. M., M. D., associated 
in medical practice with his father ; and John Clark 
Budlong, Jr., insurance agent. Providence. Mrs. 
Budlong's ancestors, the Williamsons, were among 
the early settlers of Pennsylvania, and a portion of 
the original Pennsylvania grant of lands in Delaware 
county is still in possession of the family ; her 
father was Emeritus Professor in the Homoeopathic 
Medical College of Pennsylvania and a man of 
distinguished ability. 



CAMPBELL, John Park, President of the 
Campbell Mills, Westerly, and of the Cranston 
Print Works Company, was born in Voluntown, 
Conn., December 28, 1822, son of Winthrop and 
Susan Dorrence (Gordon) Campbell. He is the 
third of four Campbell brothers, all prominently en- 
gaged in business in Rhode Island. The ancestry 
of this branch of the Campbell family runs back to 
Scotland, and counts many highly worthy names in 
the various professions and all the walks of life. 
Robert Campbell emigrated from Scotland to New 
England with his wife and six children in 17 19, and 
located first in New London, Conn , afterwards 
settling at Voluntown, where they were among the 
first settlers of the region. Robert's son John, 
known in local history as Dr. John on account of 
his professional skill, married and had eight chil- 
dren. His son John, the second of the name, well 
known as Deacon John, born in 1728, had six chil- 
dren, among them a third John, born 1758, who was 
a farmer of the stalwart type of those days, and be- 
came a soldier and a captain in the war of the Rev- 
olution. Winthrop, a son of this Captain John and 
father of the present John, was born in 1786 and 
had nine children, of whom four were sons, as has 
been stated ; he was an enterprising and successful 



farmer. John Park, the subject of this sketch, re- 
ceived his early education in the public schools, 
combining with this course of study a home training 
in industry, economy and integrity that had an im- 
portant bearing upon his uninterrupted success in his 
business undertakings. Deciding upon a business 
career, he first engaged as clerk in a store at West- 
erly, where his brother Horatio N. had been four 
years employed. Later in the same year, 1840, the 
proprietor of the business, who was also a large and 
distinguished manufacturer, moved into larger 
quarters and took in Horatio as partner, the firm 
becoming H. N. Campbell & Company. John 
continued with the new house until 1850, when he 




J. p. CAMPBELL. 

became a member of the firm and soon rose to 
prominence by his activity, tact and good business 
judgment ; the house dealt in merchandise, manu- 
facturers' supplies and wool. In 1855 he retired 
from this connection, and forming a copartnership 
with his brother James M., established a wholesale 
house in Providence, dealing in wool and cotton, 
under the firm name of J. P. & J. M. Campbell. 
They built up a prosperous business and continued 
until 1865, when James withdrew to enter upon 
other engagements, and a new firm was formed 
bearing the name of J. P. Campbell & Co., of 
which another brother, Daniel G., was a member. 
At this time the firm added to their business the 



i68 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



manufacture of woolen goods, first taking on lease 
the Belleville Mill in North Kingston, which was im- 
proved and run to good advantage. In 1876 the 
firm bought the mill property at Potter Hill in 
Westerly, which, after being nearly doubled in capac- 
ity, has ever since been known as the Campbell 
Mills, and is one of the best woolen manufacturing 
plants in Rhode Island. In 1887 John bought the 
interest of his brother Daniel in the Belleville Mills, 
enlarged the structure, added new machinery and 
made it a first-class fancy-cassimere mill. The 
Campbell Mills at Potter Hill are now incorporated, 
John being President and Daniel the Treasurer. 
John and Daniel also bought in 1884 the Riverside 
Mill in East Providence, a new plant, which they 
equipped with ten thousand spindles for working 
cotton. In 1888 John and B. B. & R. Knight 
bought the Cranston Print Works property, formerly 
owned by the Spragues, fitted it for bleaching, dye- 
ing and finishing cotton goods, and organized the 
business under the name of the Cranston Print 
Works Company, of which Mr. Campbell is the 
President. Mr. Campbell is a prominent member 
of the Providence Board of Trade, of which he was 
one of the organizers. He has been for more than 
twenty years a Director in the Second National 
Bank of Providence and has been a Director in the 
Industrial Trust Company almost from its formation. 
Politically he was an old line Whig, and on the 
formation of the Republican party naturally en- 
listed under its banner, never however seeking or 
accepting public office. In religion he was reared 
a Presbyterian, but early became an Episcopalian, 
uniting with Christ Church in Westerly and after- 
wards with Grace Church in Providence. Mr. 
Campbell was married, February 25, 1873, to Miss 
Jessie H. Babcock of Liverpool, England. His 
wife was born in Glasgow, Scotland, while her 
father, Benjamin F. Babcock of Stonington, Conn., 
was engaged there in a branch of a banking house 
with his brother, Samuel D. Babcock, then of New 
York. He resides in Providence. 



CHAMPLIN, John Carder, M. D., of Block 
Island, was born in the homestead of his grand- 
father Rose at New Shoreham, Block Island, 
February 13, 1864, son of John P. and Lydia M. 
(Rose) Champlin. His father was the only son of 
Christopher E. andRosina (Pocock) Champlin, and 
Christopher was the fourth and youngest son of 
Nathaniel and Mary T. (Hull) Champlin, who were 



the first of the family to settle on Block Island (about 
1 7 75)- The Champlin family is one of the oldest on 
the island, and the name is closely connected and 
associated with all the principal events that make 
its history. John P. Champlin, the father of Dr. 
Champlin, has been at the head of the town govern- 
ment for the last quarter of a century. The subject 
of this sketch received his early education in the 
public schools of New Shoreham and the Island 
High School. Adopting medicine as a profession, 
he entered the Boston University School of Medicine, 
from which he graduated in June 1885 with the 
degree of M. D. Being induced to locate in his 
native town, he began the practice of medicine on 




JOHN CARDER CHAMPLIN. 

Block Island in July 1885, and has continued there 
until the present time. He has the honor of being 
the first physician born on Block Island. He was 
appointed Postmaster of Block Island in July 1888, 
and in February 1893 he was appointed Medical 
Examiner of the Second District of Newport County 
for six years. He was elected a member of the 
School Committee of the town of New Shoreham in 
April 1894. Dr. Champlin is a member of the Rhode 
Island Homu.>opathic Medical Society and the 
Hahnemann Medical Society of Boston ; also of 
Atlantic Lodge of Masons, of which he was master 
from 1890 to 1895, Columbus Lodge Knights of 
Pythias, Newport Chapter, De Blois Council, and 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



169 



Washington Commandery Knights Templar. He 
is a member of the First Baptist Church of Block 
Island. In politics he is a Democrat. Although 
never seeking ofifice, Dr. Champlin has always been 
active in all enterprises for the welfare and develop- 
ment of his native town, and was especially influential 
in securing the completion of the harbor of refuge 
in the Great Salt Pond of Block Island. He was 
married, Jxme 23, 1886, to Miss Annie J. Conley, 
daughter of Captain George W. and Arabella 
(Dodge) Conley ; they have three children : Annie 
A., Rose and Christopher A. Champlin. 



CLANCY, William P., Postmaster of Westerly, 
was born in Waterford, New London county, Conn., 
June 20, 1855, son of James and Bridget (McGrath) 




WM. p. CLANCY. 

Clancy. He is of Irish ancestry. His father was 
born in County Limerick, Ireland, in 1822, and 
emigrated to America in 1849, and his mother was 
born in County Tipperary in 1832, and came to this 
country in 1848 ; they came to Westerly in April 
1858. William's early education was acquired in 
the public schools of Westerly, from 1862 to 1868. 
His parents being in comparatively poor circum- 
stances, and he being the eldest of eight children, 
he was obliged to leave school at an early age, but 
attended evening school during the winter months 



of 1869-70. He learned the granite cutters' trade, 
and commencing the business in November 1872, 
continued in that occupation until November 1893, 
always working hard during the day and devoting 
his evenings to study. Mr. Clancy is a member of 
the Atlantic Social Club, the Ancient Order of Hi- 
bernians, and the Cardinal Manning Total Absti- 
nence Society. He was Recording Secretary of the 
Ancient Order of Hibernians from June 1883 to 
January 1889, then served two years as President, 
and was then elected County President of Washing- 
ton county, which ofifice he now holds. He was 
also Recording Secretary of the Atlantic Social Club 
June 1885 to January 1888. He received his ap- 
pointment as Postmaster of Westerly on May 23, 
1895. In politics he is a Democrat, and has been 
Chairman of the Democratic Town Committee since 
March 1890. He is unmarried. 



CLARKE, Elisha Peckham, physician and sur- 
geon, was born in AVesterly, R. I., August 17, 1833, 
the son of Robert and Dorcas (Peckham) Clarke. 




E. P. CLARKE. 

He is a descendant of an old Rhode Island family 
settled in the state since an early period in its his- 
tory. He received his early education in the public 
schools and at DeRuyter Institute, New York. He 
taught school for several years, successfully, before 



lyo 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



entering upon the profession of medicine which he 
adopted. He took one course in the Harvard Medi- 
cal School and finished his course in the Maine 
Medical School (Bowdoin College), from which he 
graduated August 5, 1863. He commenced practice 
in Milford, Mass., in the fall of 1863. On February 7, 
1864, he was commissioned Assistant Surgeon in 
the Thirty-first Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers. 
He remained in the service and was mustered out at 
the close of the war, in September 1865. He then 
settled in Hope Valley where he has since remained 
in the enjoyment of a large practice. He was elected 
a member of the State Senate in 1878-79 and re- 
elected in 1879-80. He has been a Director in the 
Hopkinton Savings Bank since its incorporation and 
is now its second Vice-President. He was elected a 
Fellow of the Rhode Island Medical Society in 1867, 
its second Vice-President in 1891--92, first Vice- 
President in 1893-94, and its President in 1895, 
which office he now holds. He is a charter mem- 
ber of Charity Lodge A. F. & A. M., and was 
elected Worshipful Master in 1870. He is also a 
charter member of Franklin Royal Arch Chapter, 
in which he has held various offices and is at present 
King. He is a charter member of Lincoln Post, 
G. A. R., was its first commander and served for 
two years. He is a charter member of Hope Chap- 
ter of the Eastern Star, and its first Worthy Patron. 
He is now Grand Associate Patron of the Grand 
Chapter O. E. S. of Rhode Island. He married, 
May 7, 1859, Miss Nancy J, Davis, of Ledyard, 
Conn, who died November 20, 1894; they have 
two children : Elisha D., a graduate of Harvard 
Medical University, now practicing medicine in 
Woonsocket, R. I., and Elliott M., a student in the 
medical department of the University of Michigan. 



COLE, Joseph Edward, President of the Ameri- 
can Worsted Company, and large owner in and 
Treasurer of the Harris Woolen Company, Woon- 
socket, was born in North Kingston, R. I., Novem- 
ber 18, 1824, son of Edward and Margaret (Pierce) 
Cole, and is the only one remaining of a family of 
seven children. He is a descendant in the sixth 
generation of Isaac Cole of Sandwich, County of 
Kent, England, who came to America with his fam- 
ily in the ship Hercules early in the seventeenth 
century, and settled in Charlestown, Mass. One of 
his ancestors, John Cole, married Susannah Hutch- 
inson, daughter of William and Anne Hutchinson, 



the latter of whom was banished from Massachu- 
setts on account of her religious views. The sub- 
ject of this sketch was reared upon the farm owned 
by his father, receiving his education in the country 
schools and at the Wickford and East Greenwich 
academies. For a period following the completion 
of his academical course he employed the winter 
months in teaching, and spent the summers in the 
various duties pertaining to the avocation of farm- 
ing. Being ambitious to enter upon a business 
career, he removed in his twenty-second year to 




JOS. E. COLE. 

Providence, where he engaged as book-keeper and 
clerk in a drug and dye house, and later accepted a 
position as book-keeper in the print works at Johns- 
ton, R. L, where he remained four years and a half. 
In 1854 he effected an engagement with Edward 
Harris of Woonsocket, in whose extensive business 
he soon made his presence felt, especially in estab- 
lishing a considerable and growing trade for the 
Harris goods in Boston. As a consequence of his 
efficient services in this connection he was given an 
interest in the business, devoting himself especially 
to the finances, and to the trade that had been 
built up in Boston. The satisfactory outcome of 
the Boston venture led Mr. Harris to open a New 
York house for the sale of the fabrics of his mills, 
and it devolved upon Mr. Cole to organize the busi- 
ness at that point, where he remained until the en- 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



171 



terprise was an assured success. The large manu- 
facturing interest of the Harris Mills was subse- 
quently reorganized as the Harris Woolen Company, 
in which he was one of the partners and Treasurer 
of the organization. Upon the reorganization of 
the American Worsted Company, in 1876, Mr. Cole 
was called to fill the Presidency of that corporation, 
and still serves in that capacity. He is also Presi- 
dent of the First National and People's Savings 
banks of Woonsocket, and of the Woonsocket Gas 
Company. He served on the School Board for 
nine years, part of this time as President of the 
Board. In politics he is a staunch Republican, and 
has been identified to some extent with local politi- 
cal issues. In 1888 he represented his town in the 
State Senate, and was Chairman of the Finance 
Committee of that body. Mr. Cole was married, 
October 12, 1857, to Miss Mary K., daughter of 
William L. and Mary Ann Peckham, of Bristol, 
R. I. ; they have had four children : Edward Peckham 
(deceased), Walter Hutchinson (deceased), Mary 
Louise and Frederick Peirce Cole. 



COM STOCK, Richard Borden, lawyer. Prov- 
idence, was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, Feb- 
ruary 15, 1854, son of Joseph J. and Maria S. 
(Taber) Comstock. He is a descendant of Roger 
Williams. His father was a noted steamship cap- 
tain, for many years in the service of the early 
Sound lines, commanding steamers running between 
Fall River and New York, and later connected with 
the Collins Line to Europe, in command of the 
Baltic, and afterward of the Adriatic, which at the 
time she was built was the second-largest steamboat 
in the world. Captain Comstock was in command 
of the Baltic during the war of the Rebellion, when 
she was employed in the government transport ser- 
vice, and was present at the capture of Port Royal, 
New Orleans and other maritime strongholds of the 
Confederacy, the boy Richard accompanying his 
father in all of the Baltic's expeditions while in the 
service of the government. Richard received his 
early education in boarding schools at Ridgefield, 
Conn., Yonkers, N. Y., and Lawrenceville, N. J. 
He prepared for college at Mowry & Goff's English 
and Classical School in Providence, and entered 
Brown University, from which he graduated in 1876, 
He studied law in the office of Hon. E. C. Mowry. 
was admitted to the Rhode Island bar in 1878 and 
to the United States courts in 1881, and since the 
former date has been actively engaged in the prac- 



tice of his profession in Providence, for the last four 
years in partnership with Rathbone Gardner under 
the firm name of Comstock & Gardner. Mr. Com- 
stock is a member of the Hope, Squantum, Art and 
Athletic clubs of Providence. He is a Democrat in 
politics, and has served one term as State Senator, 
in 1892-93. He was married, July 19, 1883, to 
Miss Alice Greene, daughter of Professor Samuel S. 




RICHARD B. COMSTOCK. 



Greene late of Brown University and well known 
as the author of Greene's Grammar ; they have 
three daughters : Marjorie Stuart, Louise Howard 
and Alice May Comstock. 



DAVIS, Fr.-vnklin Jerome, physician and sur- 
geon, Newport, was born in Saugus, Massachusetts, 
March 25, 186 r, son of Jerome and Harriet A. 
(Weeks) Davis. His father was a lawyer; his 
grandfather, Rodney Davis, was a farmer and a 
soldier of the war of 18 12, and his great-grand- 
father fought in the Revolutionary army, in which 
he held a Lieutenant's commission. The names in 
the female branch of his paternal ancestry were 
Hyde and Rogers. On the maternal side he is 
descended from one of three brothers Weeks 
who landed at Plymouth in 1636; female ancestral 
names. Small and CoUins. He received his early 



172 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



education in the common schools, passing through 
the ordinary grades and entering the Saugus High 
School at the age of twelve, and left home when 
quite young to seek his fortune. At that time he 
was going to sea summers, and spending the winters 
at school. At the youthful age of eighteen he was 
mate of a bark on the Pacific, and later a mining 
superintendent in California for three years until 
1883, when he went into the drug business in 
Arizona as clerk, and subsequently, in 1886, bought 
out the store. In 1887 he returned East and 
entered the Medical Department of the University 
of Vermont, from which he graduated July 3, 1891, 
at that time Vice-President of his class. In Dec- 




F. J. DAVIS. 

ember 1891 he came to Newport and entered 
upon the practice of medicine. Dr. Davis is a 
member of the Newport Medical Society, and of 
various fraternal orders and societies, including St. 
Paul Lodge A. F. & A. M., Newport Chapter 
Royal Arch Masons, Washington Commandery 
Knights Templar, Redwood Lodge Knights of 
Pythias, Ocean Lodge A. O. U W. and Court 
Wauton A. O. F. A., also a member of the Newport 
and Conanicut yacht clubs. He was married, 
November 29, 1891, to Miss Emma K. Varney ; 
they have two children : Annie D. and Dexter 
Jerome Davis. 



DOYLE, Thomas Arthur, Mayor of Providence 
for eighteen terms, 1864-69, 1870-81, and 1884 
until his death in 1886, was born in Providence, 
March 15, 1827, son of Thomas and Martha (Jones) 
Doyle. He enjoyed the advantages of the city 
schools, graduating from the Elm-street grammar 
school, and at the age of fourteen entered the 
counting-room of Benjamin Cozzens, Esq., where he 
remained six years, and then held for five years the 
position of head clerk for Jacob Dunnell & Com- 
pany. In 1853 he was elected Cashier of the 
Grocers' and Producers' Bank, which position he 
occupied two years, and later became a stock-broker 
and auctioneer of real estate. His interest and ac- 
tivity in public life began at an early age. In 1848 
he was elected Ward Clerk for the Sixth Ward, and 
held the position for six years, after which he held 
ofifice under the city government almost continuously 
until his death. In 1852 he was elected a member 
of the Common Council from the Fifth Ward, and 
while serving in that capacity was chairman of vari- 
ous important committees, and was President of the 
Council in 1854 and 1855. In the latter year he 
was Chairman of the Board of Assessors, and for 
eighteen years he served on the School Committee. 
In June 1864 he was inaugurated Mayor of the city, 
and to this office he was annually re-elected, with 
the single exception of 1869, until January 1881. 
In that year he was elected Senator to the General 
Assembly. After an interval of three years he again 
resumed the office of Mayor, which he occupied 
until his death, June 9, 1886. During Mayor Doyle's 
administration the city more than doubled in popu- 
lation and wealth, and at his instigation many im- 
portant public improvements were carried into effect ; 
the city police were drilled and uniformed, water 
was introduced, an excellent system of sewerage was 
adopted and put under construction, the Roger 
Williams Park was given to the city and improved, 
many public buildings were erected, and a general 
spirit of progress was infused into the city govern- 
ment. As an intelligent and fitting tribute to his 
character and attainments as a public man and exec- 
utive, this sketch may well include an extract from 
an article in the Boston Advertiser, printed in 1881, 
upon the occasion of Mayor Doyle's second retire- 
ment from the office, which he had held with but a 
single year's intermission for sixteen years. " Mayor 
Doyle's career," said this authority, "is the more re- 
markable, as the second city of New England is 
unique in the self-asserting individuality of its citi- 
zens and the heat of its ever-shifting partisanship. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



173 



Mr. Doyle himself has the individuality of a true 
Rhode Islander ; he has the courage of his convic- 
tions ; his opinions are decided, he has never been 
afraid to express them, and there are probably few 
voters of the city who have not at one time or 
another opposed him. In uniform succession he 
has been opposed by every journal published in 
Providence, and as a rule this opposition has been 
merciless, if not bitter and unreasonable. He has 
been opposed at one time by Democrats, then by 
Republicans, then by the Independents, then by 
the chief taxpayers, then by every department of 
the city government, and always by a hopeful 
minority. His relations to the City Council have 
usually been those of hearty disagreement on almost 
everything. The veto messages written by Mayor 
Doyle would fill a stout folio volume. He has rarely 
had the support of conservative financiers, and he 
has never attempted a personal policy or a policy of 
conciliation. While expressing cordial dislike for all 
sorts of men, corporations and interests, he has 
ever been ready to give every citizen the fullest in- 
formation on all city matters, and he does not seem 
to have known what wire-pulling, secret arrange- 
ments and quiet understandings meant. He has 
been frank, upright and straightforward to the last 
degree — so much so that any man could at any 
time learn precisely what the Mayor wanted or op- 
posed. Rarely has a Mayor resisted popular measures 
more frankly, or advocated unpopular policies more 
courageously. . . . He quits office with the proud 
record that Providence is one of the best governed 
of all American cities. . . . Altogether Mr. Doyle 
closes a service as unparalleled as it is deserving of 
studious attention on the part of those interested in 
the difficult and undefined art of municipal govern- 
ment." Mayor Doyle was a prominent Mason, 
being made Grand Master in 1857, and having 
served as Prelate and Commander of Calvary Com- 
mandery Knights Templar, also as Grand Prelate, 
Grand Captain and Grand Generalissimo of the 
Grand Commandery of Massachusetts and Rhode 
Island ; he was also a thirty-third degree Mason. 
He was for many years a consistent member of the 
Unitarian church. He was married, October 21, 
1869, to Miss Almira, daughter of Amasaand Fanny 
Sprague, and sister of the late Governor and United 
States Senator William Sprague. 



mouth, Me., August 8, 1839, son of Samuel Frank- 
lin and Martha Caroline (Neal) Folsom. He ob- 
tained his early education in the public schools, and 
was employed quite young upon the farm. At the 
age of eighteen he learned the horse-shoeing trade 
in Augusta, Me., and worked at it until 1863, when 
he went to California, where he remained until 
1870. In that year he came East, and was for two 
years engaged in selling sewing machines in Provi- 
dence. After this he engaged in the business of 
shirt-making and followed it two years, and subse- 
quently became connected with the Union Rail- 
road Company and assumed the responsible posi- 
tion of Superintendent. He has not taken an ac- 




JOHN N. FOLSOM. 

five part in politics or public life, but is a member 
of the West Side Club, also of Temple Lodge of 
Masons, Winthrop, Maine, and of Harmony Lodge 
Knights of Honor, Providence. Mr. Folsom was 
married in 1874 to Miss Catherine Bay; they 
have one son living : Henry Frank Folsom. 



FOLSOM, John Neal, Superintendent of the 
Union Railroad, Providence, was born in Mon- 



FOWLER, George Herbert, late Secretary and 
Treasurer of the Pawtucket Manufacturing Com- 
pany, was born in Northbridge, Massachusetts, July 
16, 1852, son of George D. and Abigail (Adams) 
Fowler, and died in Pawtucket, January 4, 1895. 
He received his early education in the public 
schools of Barre, Mass., to which place his parents 



174 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Removed when he was but two years old. In the 
spring of 1869, at the age of sixteen, he left the 
high school to enter the Worcester Academy, but 
in a few weeks transferred his attendance to the 
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, as the latter 
school was found to offer better opportunities for 
the practical education he desired. He graduated 
from this institution in 1873, ^^ith special profi- 
ciency in the department of mechanical engineering, 
and with the commendation of his instructors for 
general deportment and faithful performance of his 
school duties. Soon after graduation, being de- 
sirous of finding a promising opening for a career 




GEO. H. FOWLER. 

worthy of himself and his ideals, he made a short 
tour of several cities and finally settled in Provi- 
dence, where he entered a small machine shop as 
draughtsman. The following year, 1874, he entered 
the employ of the Providence Tool Company in a 
similar capacity, and remained with them seven 
years. In July 1881, George H. ^Vebb, for many 
years in the employ of William H. Haskell & Com- 
pany, bolt and nut manufacturers of Pawtucket, 
severed his connection with that firm and engaged 
in business for himself, building bolt and nut ma- 
chinery under contract for the Providence, now the 
Rhode Island, Tool Company. By an agreement 
with the tool company, Mr. Webb secured the 
services of Mr. Fowler as draughtsman. The rela- 



tions thus established between Messrs. Webb and 
Fowler ripened into a warm friendship, and when 
in 1882 the Pawtucket Manufacturing Company 
was incorporated, the latter became a member of 
the company, and was elected its Secretary and 
Treasurer. This position he held at the time of his 
death, which untimely event took place in January 
1895, in the forty- third year of his age. That his 
abilities and faithful service in his ofificial capacity 
were recognized and appreciated by his business 
associates, and that his high character and personal 
worth as a friend and citizen were understood and 
honored by the general community, were strikingly 
evidenced by the widespread tributes of respect 
paid to his memory, and by the popular feeling of 
deep sorrow and regret manifested, upon the occa- 
sion of his demise. For some years Mr. Fowler 
had suffered from a chronic malady which affected 
his general health to an extent that made it imper- 
ative for him to decline the assumption of all cares 
beyond those of his home and business. He was 
always, however, keenly alive to the well-being and 
prosperity of his adopted city, and an active sup- 
porter of all measures to that end. He stood high 
in the Masonic fraternity, being a member of Union 
Lodge, in which he had held every office up to and 
including Senior Warden, and of Pawtucket Royal 
Arch Chapter, Pawtucket Council and Holy 
Sepulchre Commandery Knights Templar, also of 
the Scottish Rite, the Consistory, and Aleppo 
Temple of the Mystic Shrine, Boston. His church 
relations were sustained with the unassuming con- 
sistency that was a shining mark of his character. 
During his residence in Providence he joined the 
Beneficent Congregational Church, and although 
retaining his membership there to the time of his 
death, he was a regular attendant of the Pawtucket 
Congregational Church, and identified prominently 
with its interests and welfare. Mr. Fowler was 
strongly attached to his home, preferring the quiet 
happiness of his domestic relations to any extended 
social distractions. He was married, December 7, 
1887, to Miss Lula A. Reynolds, who survives him 
and mourns in his loss the unfulfilled promise of 
future happy years. 



FREEMAN, Hon. Edward Livingston, State 
Commissioner of Railroads, was born in Waterville, 
Me., September 10, 1S35, son of Rev. Pkiward and 
Harriet Ellis (Colburn) Freeman. His father was 
a clergyman of the Baptist denomination, a graduate 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



175 



of Brown University, a native of Mendon, Mass , 
and was probably a descendant of one of the three 
Freeman brothers, who came over to Plymouth from 
England ; his mother was born in West Dedham, 
Mass., and after graduating from the high school at 
Medfield, engaged in teaching French and Latin, in 
which she was specially proficient. Rev. Mr. Freeman 
was engaged in the ministry at Waterville and later 
at Oldtown, Me., removing from the latter place to 
Camden in the same State, where he resided, with 
the exception of two years spent at Bristol, R. I., 
until his death in 1882. Edward was the eldest of 
ten children. He was personally taught and fitted 
for college by his father, who for many years taught 



"""to \ 




E. L. FREEMAN. 

a high-class private school ; but deciding to learn 
the printing business, in preference to taking a 
college course, he was apprenticed to A. W. Pearce, 
proprietor of a printing establishment in Pawtucket, 
R. I. Following his apprenticeship he entered the 
employ of Hammond, Angell & Co., Providence, 
remained with them several years, holding a partner- 
ship in the firm during the last two years of his 
connection, and then sold out his interest and com- 
menced business in Central Falls, where he has 
been successful in building up a large business, in- 
cluding all departments of printing. In 1886, his 
eldest son, William C, became a partner, and in 
March i886 his second son, Joseph W., was taken 



into the firm and the business is now conducted 
under the name of E. L. Freeman & Sons. In 1880 
the book and stationery establishment of Valpey, 
Angell & Co., Providence, was purchased, and is still 
the location of the present firm of E. L. Freeman 
& Sons, although the printing establishment has 
been maintained at Central Falls, and in 1888 a 
large stationery store was established at Pawtucket. 
The firm have had charge of the State printing for 
a number of years, and are the publishers of the 
Freemasons' Repository, a monthly magazine. 
Mr. Freeman's early estabHshed reputation for activ- 
ity, persistence, business ability and integrity has 
resulted in holding many positions of financial trust 
and responsibility, and his interest in public affairs 
has led to his being called to an uninterrupted 
period of service in pubhc office for many years. 
In politics he is a Republican, and was Chairman of 
the Rhode Island Delegation to the Republican 
National Convention in June 1892. He has been 
a member of the General Assembly of Rhode Island 
for more than twenty years, during two years of 
which he was Speaker of the House of Representa- 
tives, and at this time he is representing the city of 
Central Falls in the State Senate, being Chairman 
of the Judiciary Committee of that body. He was 
the last Senator from the town of Smithfield before 
it was divided, the first Senator from the new town 
of Lincoln, the last Senator from Lincoln before it 
was divided, and the first Senator from the city of 
Central Falls, thus representing two towns and one 
city in the Senate without change of residence. 
Mr. Freeman is at present State Commissioner of 
Railroads, which office he has held since May 1889. 
He has found time in the midst of a busy public 
and business life to give some attention to military 
affairs, and was connected with the state militia for 
many years, rising from private to Colonel. He is 
also a member of the Masonic fraternity, the Odd 
Fellows, Red Men, Knights of Pythias and Good 
Fellows. In Masonry he has held the office of 
Grand Master of Masons in Rhode Island, Grand 
High Priest of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of 
Rhode Island, and Grand Commander of the Grand 
Commandery of Knights Templar of Massachusetts 
and Rhode Island ; he has also taken the Cryptic 
degrees and those of the A. and A. Scottish Rite. 
For many years he was actively connected with the 
Fire Department of Central Falls, and served as 
fireman for nineteen years. He has been a mem- 
ber of the Central Falls Congregational Church since 
1855, and for twelve years he has been the efficient 



176 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Superintendent of its Sunday School. Mr. Freeman 
was married, in 1858, to Miss Emma E. Brown of 
Central Falls ; they have five children living : Wil- 
liam C, president of the Taber Art Company, New 
Bedford, Mass. ; Joseph W., in business with his 
father; Emma R., now Mrs. John A. Moore of 
Richmond, Va. ; Rev. Edward, Methodist minister 
at Schuylkill Haven, Pa., and Lucy J. Freeman, now 
a senior at Wellesley College. 



GRANGER, William Smith, President of the 
Granger Foundry and Machine Company, Provi- 




W. S. GRANGER. 

dence, was born in Pittsford, Vt., September 19, 
1834, son of Chester and Mary Page (Smith) 
Granger. He is lineally descended from Launcelot 
Granger, who emigrated to this country in 1640, 
settled in Newbury, Mass., and removed in 1672 to 
Suffield, Conn. ; he was one of the original proprie- 
tors of that town, and was wounded in the King 
Philip war. Among others of his ancestry were 
Rev. Peter Bulkeley, the founder of Concord, Mass. ; 
Gershom Bulkeley, Surgeon in the Colonial Army ; 
Charles Chauncy, President of Harvard University; 
Jonathan Prescott, Captain in the Colonial 7\rmy ; 
and William Aspinwall, one of the founders of Mas- 
sachusetts Bay Colony. His early education was 



acquired at Salem, New York, and Burr Seminary 
at Manchester, Vt., supplemented by one year's 
study at Lyon and Frieze's School in Providence, 
previous to entering Brown University in 1850, 
where he pursued a two years' course, and from 
which institution he has been honored by receiving 
the degree of A. M., conferred in 1890. His prac- 
tical training for active life was received at Augusta, 
Me., and Pittsford, Vt. Since 1868 he has resided 
in Providence, and is President of the Granger 
Foundry and Machine Company, who manufacture 
machinery for finishing textile goods and fine papers. 
He is also Director in the Second National Bank, 
and numerous other corporations. Mr. Granger is 
a member of the Society of the Sons of the Ameri- 
can Revolution, Rhode Island Historical Society, the 
Hope and Squantum clubs of Providence, and the 
Providence Athletic Association. He was married, 
June 12, 187 1, to Miss Caroline Richmond Pitman, 
of Providence ; they have two children : Mary Alice 
and Helen Richmond Granger. 



GRANT, Geotige Henry, Superintendent of the 
Eagle Mills, Woonsocket, was born in Woonsocket, 




GEO. H. GRANT, 



December 11, 1837, son of Arunah and Eliza 
(Darling) Grant, the former a native of Cumber- 
land, R. L, and the latter of Wrentham, Mass. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



177 



His education was begun in the public schools, 
from which he entered Smithville Seminary in North 
Scituate, and later graduated from the High School 
in Woonsocket. Being desirous of becoming master 
of a self-supporting trade, he entered the machine 
shops of Edward Harris, where he served an 
apprenticeship of three years, and then found 
employment in Woonsocket and afterward in Provi- 
dence. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 
he entered the service as Lieutenant of Company 
K, First Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers, and 
participated in the battle of Bull Run. Returning 
at the expiration of his enlistment period of three 
months, he raised a company that was merged into 
the Fifth Regiment Heavy Artillery and known as 
Company D, of which he became Captain. He 
took part in the battles of Roanoke Island, New- 
bern and Fort Macon, and in consequence of a 
bad wound at Newbern was compelled to resign 
and return home. Later he resumed his trade, and 
soon after was made foreman of the foundry and 
machine shops of Edward Harris. Three years 
later he accepted an engagement with the Groton 
Manufacturing Company as foreman of their machine 
shop, and after continuing in this relation a year, 
became superintendent of the mills. In 1883 this 
industry was reorganized as the Eagle Mills, of 
which he is the Superintendent at the present time. 
Mr. Grant has been a lifelong and ardent Repub- 
lican ; he cast his first vote for the first Republican 
candidate for President, and has voted for every 
Republican presidential nominee since. He has 
been several times a member of the Town Council, 
and for a portion of the time its President. When 
Woonsocket was made a town, in 1867, he was 
elected as a member of its first council ; and when 
later it became a city, in 1889, he had the honor of 
being its first Mayor. For a number of years he 
held the offices of Chief and Assistant Engineer of 
the Fire Department. He is a member of Woon- 
socket Commandery No. 23 Knights Templar, 
Morning Star Lodge No. 13 F. & A. M., Union 
Chapter No. 5, Palestine Temple A. A. O. N. M. 
S., Woonsocket Lodge No. 10 I. O. O. F., Washing- 
ton Lodge No. 1269 Knights of Honor, and Smith 
Post No. 9 G. A. R., all of Woonsocket. He 
worships with the congregation of the Universalist 
Church. Mr. Grant was married, in 1865, to Miss 
Ellen F. Rand, daughter of Franklin Rand of Paw- 
tucket; they have five children: Harriet A., wife 
of James E. Pratt of Woonsocket ; George F , Edwin 
S , Ellen F. and William H. Grant. 



HALL, William Henry, real estate broker. Prov- 
idence, was born in that city June 12, 1837, son of 
James S. and Eleanor Ryder (Snow) Hall. His 
early education was obtained in the public schools, 
until at the age of fourteen, being desirous of learn- 
ing a trade, he entered a large cigar factory, and in 
six months became an expert workman. But the 
occupation and confinement impaired his health, so 
much so that for two years his life was despaired of, 
although he retained his courage and ambition, and 
upon partial recovery cast about for some other 
active employment. When seventeen years old he 
borrowed from a friend a small capital of less than 
fifty dollars, and securing credit for the necessary 




WILLIAM H. HALL. 

materials, erected a small building and opened a 
store for the sale of fruits, confectionery and period- 
icals. His venture proved successful, and by careful 
methods and strict attention to business, he was soon 
accumulating money in a small way, while at the 
same time contributing to the support of his parents. 
With improved health came increasing ambition, 
and deciding upon a mercantile career, he attended 
a course of instruction in Scholfield's Commercial 
College, from which he received a diploma in 1859. 
At once securing a position as book-keeper with a 
large concern in Providence, he sold out his busi- 
ness in the store and rented the building to the pur- 
chaser. He retained his book-keeping situation in 



178 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Providence four years, and then took a similar posi- 
tion with a large wholesale lumber house in Albany, 
New York. Early in 1865, being offered the position 
of Secretary and Treasurer of the Marietta and 
Vinton County Coal and Oil Company, of Prov- 
idence, he accepted the situation and returned to 
his native city, and continued in this relation until 
the business of the company was closed up. Mr. 
Hall began his operations in real estate in 1866. 
At that time the real estate business of Providence 
was practically monopolized by one or two firms, 
long established and influential, and his success in 
this line, established in the face of competition with 
the older and more powerful operators, is but little 
short of phenomena], and can only be attributed to 
his personal qualities of unbounded energy, strict 
integrity, unflagging persistency and rare business 
judgment. His experience in the lumber trade was 
invaluable to him, and this, combined with his intui- 
tion and natural business abilities of a high order, 
enabled him in due time to establish for himself an 
enviable position and reputation as one of the lead- 
ing real estate brokers and dealers of Providence. 
In 1873 Mr. Hall purchased the Joseph Sweet estate 
in Cranston, now Edgewood, and at great expense 
of time, labor and money transformed the once 
unpretentious homestead with its spacious grounds 
into an imposing and elegant residence. In 1876 
he erected the large business block in Weybosset 
Street known as the Hall Building. In 1890 he 
organized the Central Real Estate Company, with 
an authorized capital of two millions, for the purpose 
of bringing within the reach of people of moderate 
means a class of investments hitherto monopolized 
by the wealthy. Nothing perhaps more favorably 
illustrates Mr. Hall's business energy and sagacity 
than the remarkable success of this company ; hav- 
ing been its President and Manager since its organi- 
zation, he has been the chief factor in bringing this 
large business and investment enterprise to the sub- 
stantial position anci high standing which it to-day 
occupies. Mr. Hall has been active and influential 
in public life, and has filled many elective offices, 
never having been defeated. He served six years 
as a member of the Town Council of Cranston, and 
was Town Treasurer one year, declining a re-election. 
He was a Representative to the General Assembly 
four terms, 1880-84, ^'"xl for the two years succeed- 
ing was a member of the Senate, being the first 
Republican Senator elected from the town of 
Cranston ; he was again nominated, but declined a 
longer service. While in the Assembly he served 



as Chairman of the Joint Committee on Accounts 
and Claims, and second on the Senate Committee on 
Corporations, and established a reputation as an 
excellent debater of governmental and economic 
questions. Mr. Hall finds his favorite relaxation 
from the cares of business in driving fine horses, 
and nothing gives him greater pleasure than 
handling the reins over his high-spirited four-in- 
hand team, while taking out a party of friends on 
his handsome drag. He was married, December 
24, 1866, to Miss Cleora N., daughter of William 
L. Hopkins of Providence. Mr. Hopkins, who was 
one of the chief promoters and organizers of the 
Sons of Temperance society in Providence, is a 
descendant of Thomas Hopkins, from whom was 
descended Stephen Hopkins, one of the early gov- 
ernors of Rhode Island, and a signer of the Decla- 
ration of Independence. 



HARKNESS, Professor Albert, Ph. D., LL.D., 
Professor of the Greek Language and Literature in 
Brown University, and author of the well known series 
of Greek and Latin text-books which are in almost 
universal use, was born October 6, 1822, in that part 
of Mendon, Mass., which is now the town of Black- 
stone. He is the son of South wick and Phebe 
(Thayer) Harkness. In his boyhood he attended 
the district school for ten or twelve weeks in the 
year, and when thirteen years of age he attended 
the Uxbridge High School for a single term, and 
the following year the Worcester Academy for a 
similar length of time. In 1838, after a year's 
study at home, mostly without a teacher, with occa- 
sional help from the Rev. Mr. Atkinson of Millville, 
he entered Brown University, where he at once 
attained high rank in his class, and was graduated 
as valedictorian in 1842. After graduation he en- 
gaged in the work of private instruction, but at the 
opening of the Providence High School in 1843 he 
became one of its teachers. He was Senior Master 
from September 1846 until .August 1853, when he 
resigned and went to Europe for study and travel. 
After a year's study at the universities of Bonn and 
Berlin, he received the degree of Doctor of Philos- 
ophy at Bonn, being the first American to receive 
the degree at that university. He then spent one 
semester at the University of Goettingen, and during 
the summer of 1855 traveled in Germany, France, 
Switzerland, Italy, Greece and England. On his 
way to Greece he received notice of his appoint- 
ment to the Greek chair in Brown L^niversity, and 




^yrtyi<yv:^ hi-CAJlyfE^-nyL 



^^-<^c/ 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



179 



began his work in the following September. Twice 
he has had leave of absence for a year to revisit 
Europe. Professor Harkness' labors have not been 
confined to the class-room. He has lectured on 
education in different parts of Rhode Island and 
elsewhere, and has held many positions of respon- 
sibility and trust. He was president of the Franklin 
Lyceum in 1849, ^"d of the Rhode Island Alpha of 
the Phi Beta Kappa from 1871 to 1873. He was 
one of the founders of the American Philological 
Association, one of its Vice-Presidents in 1869, and 
President in 1875-1876. He is a member of the 
Archaeological Institute of America, and in 1881 
was a member of the first committee appointed to 
consider the expediency of establishing an American 
School of Classical Studies at Athens, of which 
school he has been a member of the managing com- 
mittee from its establishment in 1882 to the present 
time. Professor Harkness has given special atten- 
tion to the methods of classical instruction. In his 
five visits to Europe he has made a careful study of 
educational questions, and at the great English and 
German schools and universities he has enjoyed 
peculiar privileges of inspecting academic work and 
of making valuable friendships among the leading 
professors and masters. He began his successful 
career as an author in 1851, with the publication of 
the First Latin Book. His later works are the 
Second Latin Book, the First Greek Book and 
Reader, the famous Latin Grammar, two Latin 
Readers, an Introductory Latin Book, Practical 
Introduction to Latin Composition, Elements of 
Latin Grammar, editions of Caesar's Gallic War, 
of Cicero's Select Orations and of Sallust's CatiHne, 
a Preparatory Course in Latin Prose Authors, a 
Latin Course for the First Year, and An Easy 
Method for Beginners in Latin. The publication 
of this series of text-books marked an era in the 
classical education of the country. A wonderful 
success followed the first appearance of the Gram- 
mar, in 1864; after thirty years it still deservedly 
leads its competitors, and its merits have been rec- 
ognized by the highest educational authorities of 
England and Germany. Professor Harkness is also 
the author of various scientific papers embodying 
some of the original results of his philological 
investigations, chief among which are two on the 
Formation of the Perfect Tense in Latin, and one on 
the Development of the Subjunctive in Principal 
Clauses ; these were published in the Transactions 
of the American Philological Association, and have 
been noticed with great respect by leading American 



and European philologists. The degree of Doctor 
of Laws was conferred upon him by Brown University 
in 1869. Professor Harkness is possessed of pecu- 
liar skill as a teacher, and is of a kind and genial dis- 
position and of a high character as a Christian scholar 
and gentleman. The esteem which his associates 
accord to him increases as the years go by, and he 
is honored and beloved, not only among his neigh- 
bors and fellow citizens, but wherever he is known 
on both sides of the sea. He was married, May 28, 
1849, to Miss Maria Aldrich Smith; they have two 
children : Clara Frances, born May 10, 185 1, wife of 
Professor Poland of Brown University, and Albert 
Granger Harkness, born November 19, 1856, for- 
merly a professor in Madison University, now Pro- 
fessor of Roman Literature and History in Brown 
University. 



HARSON, M. Joseph, merchant. Providence, 
was born in New York city, July i, 1855, son of 




M. J. HARSON. 

John and Alice (O'Connell) Harson. His ances- 
try is Irish. He received his early education in the 
public schools of New York and entered upon his 
practical training for active life as an office-boy in 
his native city, in 1867-68. He re-entered school 
at Bellefont, Pa., in 1869 and 1870, and for the three 
years 1870-72 worked as a machinist in ironworks 
at Danville, Pa. Following this experience he re- 



i8o 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



turned to New York and entered the employ of a 
prominent Broadway hatter, was a book-agent in 
1876, and a partner in the book business in 1877. 
In the latter year he came to Providence, and in 
1878 began the business career in which he has 
since been successfully engaged. He first opened a 
small store on Dorrance street, devoted exclusively 
to hats. This was an innovation in Providence, 
and many were the predictions of failure for the 
young merchant. But his enterprise and push won 
from the start, and within a year larger quarters 
were needed for his growing business, and he leased 
a more capacious store on Westminster street. 
The prophets were now certain that failure was 
inevitable as a result of Mr. Harson's bold move. 
But as before, these predictions only served to 
stimulate his determination. With unshaken faith 
in the wisdom of his policy and the efficiency of his 
methods, which especially in advertising were strik- 
ingly original, and even revolutionary in the hat 
trade, he carried out his plans with such success 
that the Westminster-street store, twice too large 
at the beginning, continued to grow smaller and 
smaller each year, until it was scarcely half large 
enough to accommodate the business flowing to him. 
Increased room became a necessity, and after long 
waiting for a suitable location, he secured the stores 
embracing the numbers 196-202 Westminster street, 
to which he removed September 5, 1891, and where 
he now has one of the largest and finest emporiums 
of its kind in the United States. Besides his large 
retail business, he has carried on a considerable 
wholesale trade, and has conducted at various times 
branch stores in the principal cities of New England. 
He has also been instrumental in starting a number 
of young men in business, in nearly every instance 
with good success Mr. Harson has always taken a 
deep interest in all movements for the advancement 
of young men. He has been active and prominent 
in the National Union of Catholic Young Men's 
Societies, was invited to deliver addresses before 
it in 1882-84-85-87, and has been accorded the 
highest honors it could bestow. In recognition of 
his society services, he has been complimentarily re- 
ferred to as "The Ozanam of America " He was 
one of the originators of the Catholic Congress held 
in Baltimore in 1889, and was elected Secretary of 
the committee appointed to arrange for future con- 
gresses. He is a frequent contributor to the 
Catholic and secular press and his articles are 
distinguished for their vigorous style, fearlessness 
of expression and sprightliness of treatment. A 



series of thoughtful articles on the negro question, 
written by him in 1890, were the subject of much 
favorable comment and commanded widespread at- 
tention, and the Colored Congress held at Cincinnati 
in June 1890 passed resolutions of thanks and elected 
him an honorary member of its executive committee. 
In September 1880 Mr. Harson entered Brown 
University and took a special two-years course, 
attending meanwhile to all the details of his business. 
In June 1892 the Board of Fellows of the University 
conferred upon him the degree of Bachelor of Arts 
in connection with his class, the class of 1884. 
His address at the first dinner of the Providence 
alumni, held in the month of March 1894, will be 
remembered as one of the successes of the evening, 
though following such notable speakers as President 
Angell of the University of Michigan, Rev. Dr. 
Greer of New York, Professor Wheeler of Cornell 
University, Doctor Keen of University of Pennsyl- 
vania and President Andrews of Brown. He is a 
member of the Rhode Island Historical Society, 
the United States Catholic Historical Society of 
Philadelphia, and the Catholic Club of New York. 
He is also a member and founder of the Phi Kappa 
Sigma college fraternity. In politics he is Indepen- 
dent-Democratic, but has steadfastly declined to 
accept nominations to public office. Mr. Harson 
was married, October 11, i88t, to Miss Marianna F. 
Kelly ; they have two children : Raymond Joseph, 
aged thirteen, and Henry Newman Harson, aged 
eleven years ; another son, Edwin Brownson Harson, 
died in infancy. 



HASBROUCK, Saver, M. D., Providence, was 
born in Middletown, N. Y., June 3, i860, son of 
John W. and Lydia (Sayer) Hasbrouck. Dr. Has- 
brouck comes of one of the oldest Knickerbocker 
families of New York state, of Flemish and Hugue- 
not ancestry. His mother, Lydia Sayer, M. D., is 
a descendant in the seventh generation of Thomas 
Sayre, whose homestead at Southampton, Long 
Island, built in 1648, is said to be the oldest house 
now standing in the state of New York. His father, 
John W. Hasbrouck, editor and founder of the 
Orange County Press, and one of the old line Whigs 
that came into the Republican ranks upon the for- 
mation of that party, is lineally descended from 
Abraham Hasbrouck, a native of Calais, France, 
who lived for a time in England, and came to this 
country about 1675, landed at Boston, and went to 
Kingston on the Hudson, where he became the head 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



I8l 



of the Paltz patentees, who controlled a large tract 
of land on the west side of the Hudson, where the 
town of New Paltz is at present located, and including 
Lake Mohonk, now a famous resort. Dr. Hasbrouck's 
great-grandfather, Captain Elias Hasbrouck, com- 
manded a company of rangers in the Revolution- 
ary army, was with Montgomery in the attack on 
Quebec in which the latter lost his life, and was 
also at the burning of Kingston by the British, on 
which occasion his store was destroyed. His grand- 
father, Richard Montgomery Hasbrouck, was named 




SAYER HASBROUCK. 

for General Montgomery, and was the recipient of a 
ring and a tract of land from the General's widow. 
Dr. Hasbrouck's early education was acquired in 
the public schools of Middletown, and a four 
years' course in Cook Academy, Havana, N. Y., 
during 1875-9. I"^ 1879-82 he studied in the 
Boston University School of Medicine, holding the 
position of House Surgeon in the College Dis- 
pensary during part of the course, and graduating 
with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He then 
spent two years abroad, principally in London and 
Dublin, but passing some time in the hospitals of 
Glasgow, Edinburgh and Paris. He was six months 
in the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, where he received 
the degree of Licentiate of Midwifery, and was also 
House Surgeon in St. Mark's Ophthalmic Hospital, 
Dublin. In London he was Clinical Assistant to 



Sir George Lawson, F. R. C. S., at the Royal Lon- 
don (Moorfields) Ophthalmic Hospital, and to Mr. 
Hamilton at the Gray's Inn Throat and Ear Hos- 
pital. Dr. Hasbrouck returned to the United States 
in June 1884, and opened practice in Providence, 
R. I., for the special treatment of diseases of the 
eye and ear. He has written papers on his travels, 
and has contributed many articles to the ophthal- 
mic literature of the day, while numerous other 
interesting and important papers which he has read 
have appeared in the Transactions of the American 
Institute of Homoeopathy and the Reports of the 
New York State Homoeopathic Society. He holds 
the position of Ophthalmic and Aural Surgeon to the 
Rhode Island Homoeopathic Hospital and Provi- 
dence Dispensary, is a member of the American 
Institute of Homoeopathy and the New York State 
Homoeopathic Society, and is Vice-President of 
the Rhode Island State Homoeopathic Society. He 
is active in various social and charitable organiza- 
tions, and is also a member of the Sons of the 
American Revolution, and of the Holland Society 
of New York, an association of Knickerbockers 
whose ancestors came over prior to 1675. Dr. 
Hasbrouck is a lover of athletics and outdoor sports, 
and both the Rhode Island Yacht Club and Provi- 
dence Athletic Association were organized in his 
office ; he was four or five years President of the 
Yacht Club and one year its Commodore, and served 
as President of the temporary organization of the 
Athletic Association. His residence is at Pawtuxet 
Neck, four miles out of the city. He was married, 
September 25, 1889, to Miss Mary Owen Fiske, 
daughter of John T. Fiske, of Pascoag, R. I. ; they 
have one child : Fanny Fiske, born December 16, 
1890. 

HAWES, Edward Coffin, merchant and me- 
chanic. Providence, and inventor of the widely- 
known Hawes Steam Trap, was born in Coventry, 
R. I., December 29, 1833, son of George and Maria 
(Greene) Hawes. His ancestry is English on both 
sides. He was educated in the public schools, and 
attended the Friends' Boarding School in Provi- 
dence in 1850, and later received a commercial 
training to fit him for a business career. He was 
brought up on a farm until the age of sixteen, when 
he came to Providence and engaged in the fruit 
and produce business with his father and three 
brothers, under the firm name of George Hawes & 
Sons. Later the wholesale grocery business was 
connected with this. About 1880 Mr. Hawes con- 



l82 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



ceived an idea to construct a device that would be 
advantageous to steam users, for the purpose of dis- 
charging the water of condensation from steam 
pipes and other appliances where live steam is used. 
This invention, known as the Hawes Steam Trap, 
has proved a great success, and is widely known 
and used throughout the United States and foreign 
countries. At present Mr. Hawes is engaged solely 
in the manufacture and sale of steam traps, and in 
looking after his extensive interests in that connec- 
tion, having retired from the fruit, produce and 
grocery business. He is a member of What Cheer 
Masonic Lodge and of Calvary Commandery Knights 
Templar, also of Canonicus Lodge of Odd Fellows 




EDWARD; C. HAWES. 



and the Athletic Club of Providence. In politics 
he is a Republican. He was married in 1874 to 
Miss Sarah J. Haynes; they have one child : Alice 
May Hawes. 



HOWARD, Henry, manufacturer, and Governor 
of Rhode Island 1873-5, was born in Cranston, 
R. I., April 2, 1826, son of Jesse and Mary (King) 
Howard. His paternal ancestry are of the English 
Howards. On the mother's side he is descended 
from Gabriel Bernon, the eminent Huguenot refugee, 
who settled in Rhode Island, and through him from 
the Bernon family of Rochelle, France. Through 



the Bernons and their descendants he has a 
genealogical record from the year A. D. 1300. He 
received his early education in the common schools 
and academies. He first adopted the law as a pro- 
fession and was admitted to the Providence County 
bar in 185 i. He practiced successfully for six years 
and then abandoned the profession for the large 
field of manufacturing and business enterprises in 
which he has since been engaged in connection with 
very important and extended operations. He early 
took an active part in politics and public life. He 
was Secretary of the Whig State Committee, and on 
the dissolution of the party took an effective part in 
the formation of the Republican party. He was a 
Delegate to the National Convention which nomi- 
nated Fremont for the Presidency in 1856, and also 
to the one which nominated Hayes in 1876. He 
was elected a member of the Rhode Island General 
Assembly in 1856-57, was a Presidential Elector in 
1872, and in 1873 was elected Governor of Rhode 
Island and re-elected in 1874. He was Expert 
Commissioner to the Paris Exposition in 1878, ap- 
pointed by President Hayes. He has repeatedly 
declined nomination for political office on account 
of the pressure of his business occupations. In 
military affairs he has been a Captain in the corps 
of the Providence Marine Artillery, and was a Colo- 
nel on the personal staff of Gov. William H. 
Hoppin. He is President of the Harris Manufac- 
turing Company, and late President of the Atming- 
ton & Sims Engine Company, the Providence Tele- 
phone Company and the Pintsch Gas Company. 
Governor Howard is a lucid and forceful writer 
upon public questions and topics of the time, and 
contributions from his ready pen have graced and 
enlivened the pages of various newspapers and peri- 
odicals, where they have invariably commanded 
thoughtful and widespread attention. He was for 
some years a member of the Franklin Lyceum and 
at one time its President. In 1873 he received the 
honorary degree of A. M. from Brown LTniversity. 
He was married, September 30, 185 1, to Miss Cath- 
arine Greene Harris, daughter of Elisha Harris, a 
former Governor of Rhode Island ; they have three 
children : Jessie H., wife of Edward C. Bucklin, 
Elisha H. and Charles T. Howard. 



JORDAN, Jules, musical director and composer, 
was born in Willimantic, Conn., November 10, 
1850, son of Lyman and Susan (Beckwith) Jordan. 
He is of early colonial ancestry, his progenitors on 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



the maternal side having been the first settlers of 
New London, Conn. ; his father's people were all 
Rhode Islanders, and their old homestead is located 
at Greene, R. I. The subject of this sketch attended 
the public school in AVillimantic until sixteen years 
old. Always interested in music, and naturally pos- 
sessed of musical talents of a high order, he had 
but small opportunity for cultivation until he re- 
moved to Providence in 1870, where his fine tenor 
voice secured him a position in the choir of Grace 
Church and made him known in musical circles. 
He was thus enabled to commence study in earnest, 
and has since devoted himself exclusively to the 
practice of the art which his tastes and special abili- 
ties led him to adopt as a life profession. He 




JULES JORDAN. 

studied thoroughly the cultivation of the voice, in 
this country with George L. Osgood of Boston, and 
in Europe under William Shakespeare in London 
and Signor Sbriglia in Paris. While abroad he had 
an exceptionally attractive offer to go upon the 
operatic stage, but he declined, much against the 
advice and wishes of Signor Sbriglia, preferring to 
pursue his own plan of work already well begun in 
Providence, to which city he returned at once upon 
the completion of his studies. As a teacher, con- 
ductor and composer, Mr. Jordan has become recog- 
nized throughout the country as at the head of his 



profession. He was choirmaster of Grace Church, 
Providence, for thirteen years, and from its organi- 
zation in 1880 has been the conductor of the Arion 
Club, a musical society that has won fame through- 
out New England and beyond. He has given in- 
struction to many hundreds of pupils, and has 
written a great number of songs, choruses and other 
musical compositions, many of which are widely 
known and have acquired a well-merited popularity. 
Early in his career Mr. Jordan came into promi- 
nence as an oratorio and concert singer, and he has 
appeared with success in most of the larger cities 
of the country. He was chosen by the late Dr. 
Damrosch to create the role of Faust in Berlioz's 
great " Le Damnation de Faust " at its first per- 
formance in New York, February 14, 1880; in this 
he made a remarkable success, and he has sung the 
part often since with great acceptance. Among the 
better known of his musical compositions are " Ny- 
dia's Love Song; " " Drink to Me Only with Thine 
Eyes ; " " If on the Meads ; " " Bedouin's Prayer ; " 
" Love's Reward ; " " Sleep, Beloved ; " " Daffo- 
dils; " " Down by the Brook in Maytime ; " " Ring 
Out, Wild Bells ; " " Forging the Plow ; " "A Life 
Lesson;" "Invocation;" "Love's Philosophy;" 
"Love's Sunshine ; " " Love's Confidence ; " " Stay 
by and Sing;" "My Laddie" and "A Dutch 
Lullaby, " also " AVind Swept Wheat," for mixed 
chorus and orchestra, with tenor solo, and " A Night 
Service," a cantata, for mixed chorus and orchestra, 
with soprano and bass solos. His sacred composi- 
tions include '• The Lost Sheep," tenor solo and 
chorus; "The Sower," alto solo and chorus; " Tan- 
tum Ergo," bass solo and chorus ; " Panis Angeli- 
cus," "I Am the Vine," and numerous others which 
have found much favor with church choirs and 
choral societies. Among his later works are a fine 
setting of Whittier's patriotic ballad, " Barbara 
Frietchie," for soprano, chorus and orchestra, and 
a national hymn, " Great Western Land." His last 
work, just completed (April 1896), is a romantic 
opera in three acts, " Rip Van Winkle," the libretto 
as well as the music being written by Dr. Jordan. 
In June 1895 Brown University conferred upon 
Mr. Jordan the honorary degree of Doctor of 
Music, the first time the degree was ever conferred 
by this institution. In 1892 he was strongly urged 
to remove to New York, where a position was offered 
him in the National Conservatory of Music, but he 
declined for the sake of his interests in Providence. 
Although fully occupied for years in the various 
branches of his profession. Dr. Jordan's field of labor 



1 84 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



is continually extending, particularly in the line of 
musical conducting, for which he is especially 
equipped and peculiarly adapted, and in which he 
has had the greatest success. 



KINNERNEY, Rev. Henry Francis, Pastor of 
St. Joseph's Church, Pawtucket, was born near 
Mountrath, Queen's County, Ireland, January 26, 
1846, son of John and Betty (Whalen) Kinnerney. 
He came to America in September 1852, and in 
1 86 1, at the age of fifteen, entered St. Charles Col- 
lege, Maryland, the nursery of so many learned and 
zealous priests. In 1863 he entered Niagara Uni- 
versity, finishing his classical course at that institu- 




H. F. KINNERNEY, 

tion, and obtaining first honors in his class. He 
then made his course in philosophy at Montreal 
College, where in 1866 he was crowned by the 
Governor- General of Canada, having taken the high- 
est honors. Upon the completion of his studies, 
December 18, 1870, he was ordained to the priest- 
hood by Bishop Bourget, and at once entered upon 
his missionary life. He had charge of the Foun- 
tain-street Academy, or preparatory school for the 
diocese of Hartford, until July 1872, when he was 
appointed pastor of Sandwich, and of all Cape Cod 
and adjacent islands, embracing Nantucket and 



Martha's Vineyard. After two years' service in this 
field he was transferred to the pastorate of the 
new parish of St. Joseph's at Pawtucket, where he 
has since labored with great success. St. Joseph's 
parish, set off from the old parish of St. Mary's, in 
1873, and embracing the territory on the east side 
of the river from Cottage Street to the East Provi- 
dence line, was struggling under a heavy debt, 
^52,000, incurred in purchasing a site and laying 
the foundations and corner stone for the new church, 
and with no means in sight for completing the edi- 
fice or even for carrying forward the work another 
stage. The burdensome indebtedness, the especial 
money stringency of the times, and a laity composed 
mainly of people in humble circumstances practi- 
cally without ready means in the hard times then 
prevailing, combined to make the outlook for the 
young parish anything but promising. But Father 
Kinnerney's energy, skill and persistency proved 
equal to the emergency. He was appointed to the 
pastorate January 26, 1874, and held his first ser- 
vice on the first Sunday in February, in the Old 
Town Hall on School Street. Under his minis- 
trations a new interest was awakened, the courage 
of the parishioners revived, money began to flow in, 
and on April i the basement was completed and 
mass was celebrated in the new church for the first 
time. The pastor's labors met with continued suc- 
cess, and the church debt was rapidly reduced, 
$27,000 being raised the first year, while the con- 
struction of the edifice went on. A church fair 
held in the first year of his pastorate, attended by 
all the civic and mihtary societies of the state, was 
instrumental in raising $10,000, of which amount 
$3,000 was contributed by Hon. George H. Wilson 
of Providence. By 1878 the pastor had brought 
the financial problem of the parish within sight of 
solu ion On the first Sunday in October of that year 
the church was dedicated with great ceremony, the 
collection upon that occasion amounting to $1,500, 
and in 1891 the belfry and tower were finished. In 
1887 Father Kinnerney purchased the French 
estate for educational purposes, and in 1892 was 
commenced the erection of a convent and school 
buildings on the grounds, completed in February 
1895 at a cost of $50,000. The old French house 
was also transformed into a home for the Sisters of 
Mercy. The school now has an attendance of 
four hundred and fifty pupils. So greatly has St. 
Joseph's flourished under Father Kinnerney's pas- 
torate, that notwithstanding the detachment from 
his parish of the mission districts of Dodgeville, 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



185 



Hebronville and Rumford, he still numbers upwards 
of three thousand people among his parishioners, 
and in this time the church has raised, exclusive of 
the pastor's support, a sum amounting to about half 
a million dollars. Not merely in religious affairs 
has Father Kinnerney been the adviser and guide 
of his flock J as a public spirited citizen he is noted 
among Protestants and Catholics alike for his deep 
interest in matters of public moment, and has taken 
an active part in many local and national move- 
ments. He is known as one of the ablest of public 
speakers, and as President of the Rhode Island 
Temperance Union, has spoken in that capacity to 
full houses from nearly every pulpit and platform in 
the state. In 1878 he was elected a member of 
the Public School Board of Pawtucket, and served 
three years. He was one of the speakers at the 
great mass meeting to welcome Parnell and Dillon 
in 1879. In 1885 the Grand Army of the Repubhc 
of the state held memorial services in St. Joseph's 
Church, the first time in the history of the society 
that such services were ever held in a Catholic 
church, upon which occasion the pastor delivered 
the oration. He also delivered memorial orations 
upon General Grant and General Garfield, at the 
instance of the G. A. R. of the state, the Grant 
oration being published by the society in pamphlet 
form. Father Kinnerney visited England, Ireland 
and France in the summer of 1882, and attended 
the unveiling of the O'Connell monument by 
Charles S. Parnell. In November 1884 he attended 
the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, as Theo- 
logian for the diocese of Providence. In June 
1895 he again visited Europe, making a tour of the 
continent, including Rome, Naples, Switzerland and 
other parts. On December 18, 1895, occurred his 
silver anniversary, commemorating his twenty-fifth 
year of priesthood; it was characteristic of him 
that he should refuse upon that occasion to sanction 
any pubhc celebration of his sacerdotal jubilee. 
Father Kinnerney was in 1893 elected President of 
the Board of Directors of the Providence Visitor, 
which office he still holds. 



KNAPP, Albert Mason, M. D., Providence, 
was born in Lyman, N. H., October 14, 1842, son 
of Dr. Horace and Lucretia (Dickenson) Knapp. 
His father was a native of Maine, born in Kingfield, 
and was a school teacher in early life, afterward a 
Universalist minister, and subsequently a physician 
and lecturer upon medical and other subjects. His 



mother was a daughter of a New Hampshire farmer. 
His boyhood was passed to quite an extent in 
Maine, mostly at Kendall's Mills, but the greater 
part of his early education was acquired in the pub- 
lic schools of Racine, Wis. He attended the Nor- 
mal School of that state, and taught school two 
years, after which he entered the Medical Depart- 
ment of the University of Michigan, from which he 
graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 
1865. Following graduation he practiced in Racine, 
Wis., for a time, and then in Chicago, until the 
great fire in 187 1, when having suffered the loss of 
his office and much other property by the conflagra- 
tion, he came East and accepted an offer to asso- 




ALBERT M. KNAPP. 

ciate himself with another physician in Lowell, 
Mass. Remaining there but a short time, he prac- 
ticed two years in Manchester, N. H., and about 
1875 located in Providence, where he has since 
been estabhshed in successful and remunerative 
practice. Dr. Knapp has served as Medical Exami- 
ner for several benevolent and fraternal organiza- 
tions, and is a member of the Rhode Island Medical 
Society, and the Providence Medical Association. 
He was married, in Dubuque, la.. May 31, 1865, to 
Miss Kittie A., daughter of Thomas W. Crane, an 
old resident of Chicago ; they have two children : 
K. Mabel and George H. Knapp. 



1 86 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



KNIGHT, Benjamin Brayton, manufacturer, 
and head of the firm of B. B. & R Knight, Provi- 
dence, was born in Cranston, R. I., October 3, 1813, 
son of Stephen and Welthan (Brayton) Knight. 
His early life was spent in assisting his father on the 
farm, and his educational advantages were limited 
to occasional terms in the district schools, until he 
was sixteen years old. At the age of eighteen, in 
1 83 1, he entered the Sprague Print Works at Crans- 
ton and served as an operative until 1833, then he 
resumed farming for two years. In 1835 he started 
the initiative movement of his remarkable business 
career, by purchasing a small building near the 
Sprague Print Works and opening a general grocery. 




B. B. KNIGHT. 

Five years later he removed to Providence, and 
with Olney Winsor and L. E. Bowen, under the 
firm name of Winsor, Knight & Company, engaged 
in the wholesale and retail grocery business. In 
1842 he purchased Mr. Bowen's interest, and in 
1847 his brother Jeremiah became associated with 
him, under the style of B. B. Knight & Company. 
Soon afterwards Mr. Knight extended his operations 
by engaging in the flour and grain trade with D. T. 
Penniman, under the name of Penniman, Knight & 
Company, and a year later bought out Mr. Penni- 
man and continued alone for about four years, doing 
a large and successful business. In 1849 he sold 
his grocery interest to his partner and brother, 



Jeremiah, and in 1852 sold a half interest in his 
flour and grain business to his brother Robert, at 
the same time purchasing of the latter a half interest 
in the Pontiac Mill and Bleachery, and establishing 
the firm of B. B, & R. Knight, under which name 
the constantly and now marvellously extended 
manufacturing and mercantile interests of the 
brothers have ever since been carried on. They 
soon retired from the flour and grain trade to de- 
vote their entire time to the manufacture and sale 
of cotton goods, and the immense business which 
they have built up from small beginnings is now the 
largest of its kind in the world. They own and 
operate under various corporate names no less than 
twenty-one cotton mills — excepting only a limited 
interest owned by outsiders in two of the mills — in 
nearly as many different and widely scattered villages 
of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, with an aggre- 
gate capacity of eleven thousand looms and over four 
hundred thousand spindles, and employing nearly 
seven thousand operatives. The principal of these 
mills are : In Rhode Island, the Natick Mills at 
Natick, Royal and Valley Queen Mills at River Point, 
Arctic Mill at Arctic, Pontiac Mill and Bleachery at 
Pontiac, White Rock Mill at Westerly, Clinton Mill 
at Woonsocket, Grant Mill at Providence, Lippitt 
Mill at Lippitt, Fiskeville Mill at Fiskeville, and 
Jackson Mill at Jackson ; and in Massachusetts the 
Hebron Mill at Hebronville, the Manchaug Mills 
at Manchaug, the Readville Mill at Readville, 
and the Dodgeville Mill at Dodgeville. The vast 
manufacturing property of the Messrs. Knight com- 
prises fifteen entire villages, absolutely separate and 
independent from each other as regards their com- 
munity interests, and includes some seventeen hun- 
dred or more tenements occupied by employes, 
besides large tracts of farming lands upon which 
they conduct extensive operations. Stores are 
maintained by the corporations in the respective 
communities, which are conducted upon the same 
careful system as in the case of the mills, and whose 
aggregate sales constitute alone a business of exten- 
sive proportions Independent of all other opera- 
tions and interests, the Messrs. Knight carry on a 
mammoth mercantile business, in the sale of the 
goods of their own manufacture. They have no 
accounts with commission houses upon which they 
can draw, but sell their goods direct to the trade 
and carry the accounts of all their customers. 
Their principal store is in Worth Street, New York, 
and they have branches or agencies in Boston, Phil- 
adelphia, Baltimore and other cities, the operations 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



187 



of all being directed from their central office in Prov- 
idence. The firm also own a controlHng interest 
in the Cranston Printing Company at Cranston, 
formerly the property of the A. & W. Sprague 
Manufacturing Company, known as among the most 
extensive works of the kind in the country, and 
have other large and diversified interests, both as a 
firm and individually. Mr. B. B. Knight has ren- 
dered efficient public service as a state legislator and 
as a member of the city government of Providence. 
He served as Alderman from the sixth ward in 1865- 
66-67, was chairman of the Finance Committee of 
the Aldermanic Board, and has been twice elected to 
the General Assembly. He has been President of 
the Butchers' and Drovers' Bank almost ever since its 
organization in 1853, and is a Director in several 
insurance companies and other business organiza- 
tions and institutions. Mr. Knight was married, in 
1842, to Miss Alice W., daughter of Elizur W. 
Collins of Johnston, R. I., who died February 8, 
1850, leaving three children, all now deceased. He 
married, second, in December 1851, Phebe A., 
daughter of Abel Slocum of Pawtuxet, R. I. ; they 
have had three children : Alice Spring, Henry 
Eugene (deceased) and Adelaide Maria Knight. 



KNIGHT, Robert, manufacturer, and member 
of the firm of B. B. & R. Knight, Providence, was 
born in Old ^Varvvick, R. I., January 8, 1826, son of 
Stephen and Welthan (Brayton) Knight. In his 
childhood his father moved his family to Cranston, 
and the lad was put to work in the Cranston Print 
Works when but eight years of age. At ten years 
he became an employe in the cotton mill at 
Coventry, owned and operated by Elisha Harris, 
where he remained until he was seventeen, part of 
the time working fourteen hours a day for I1.25 a 
week. Early in 1 843 he went to Providence and 
entered the store of his brother Benjamin as clerk. 
Being desirous of securing an education, he fol- 
lowed this occupation but two years, and then, 
through the aid of a friend, spent the eighteen 
months following in the Pawcatuck Academy at 
Westerly. He next taught a district school in the 
town of Exeter four months, and in 1846 took a 
position as clerk in the factory store of John H. 
Clark at Arnold's Bridge, now Pontiac. Mr. Clark 
was subsequently elected United States Senator, at 
which time he leased his cotton mill and bleachery 
to Zachariah Parker and Mr. Knight for $5,000 a 
year, and in October 1850, the firm of Parker & 



Knight purchased the whole property from Mr. Clark 
for ^40,000. The next year Mr. Knight bought his 
partner's interest and gave the village its present 
name of Pontiac. The main facts relating to his 
subsequent business career are narrated in the sketch 
of Benjamin Brayton Knight, wherein mention more 
or less detailed is made of the origin, development 
and present extent of the immense business con- 
trolled and operated by the brothers Benjamin B. 
and Robert under the firm name of B. B. & R. 
Knight. Robert Knight has been distinctively a 
business man, never having held any public office, 
but devoting his time and energies exclusively to 
business affairs. He was a Director in the National 




ROBERT KNIGHT, 

Bank of Commerce, Providence, from 1867 to 1884, 
when he was elected President, which office he now 
holds. He was an incorporator of the People's Sav- 
ings Bank, was elected Vice-President in 1874, and 
in 1884 became its President. He has also been 
connected officially with other banking institutions 
and several insurance companies, and was for several 
years a Director in the New York, Providence & 
Boston Railroad Company. Mr. Knight was married, 
March 5, 1849, to Miss Josephine Louisa, daughter 
of Royal A. and Hannah C. (Parker) Webster, of 
Providence ; they have had nine children, of whom 
five are now living : Josephine E., Webster, Clinton 
Prescott, Sophie and Edith Knight. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



LADD, Herbert Warren, merchant, and Gov- 
ernor of Rhode Island for two terms, 1 889-90 and 
1891-92, was born in New Bedford, Mass, Octo- 
ber 15, 1843, son of Warren and Lucy (Kingman) 
Ladd. Governor Ladd's life has been a busy one, 
crowded with incident and successful adventure. 
Few men have ever been called upon to endure, 
at times, more discouraging experiences, or greater 
trials or sorrows, but against these his indefatigable 
effort, indomitable will and good judgment have 
brought him successes and honors attained by few. 
He was educated in the public schools of New 
Bedford, and graduated from the high school of 
that city in i860. Following graduation, he en- 
tered a wholesale drygoods house. After a year 
of this experience he accepted a position on the 
staff of the New Bedford Mercury, where his abil- 
ities for newspaper work were at once recognized, 
and he soon became one of the most efficient 
reporters and correspondents of that paper. As 
a writer he was graphic and accurate, and his 
letters to the Mercury from the South and West 
during the war were of exceptional merit and in- 
terest. The first Sunday newspaper pubhshed in 
New England, outside of Boston, was an "extra" 
Mercury issued by him to announce the battle of 
Fredericksburg. In 1864 he retired from journal- 
ism and re-entered the drygoods business, with 
White, Brown & Co., Boston, then the largest im- 
porters of foreign dress-goods in the United States. 
In the spring of 1871 he came to Providence and 
started in a fifteen-foot-front store a retail drygoods 
business. His excellent taste in the selection of 
goods at once brought him the best trade of the 
city, while the systematic methods he first introduced 
into the retail business in this country and the 
special abilty he manifested as an organizer rapidly 
developed his enterprise, his business increasing until 
for years the H. W. Ladd Company occupied one 
of the largest blocks on Westminster street, widely 
known as one of the finest retail establishments in 
all New England. During the development of his 
successful business career in Providence, Mr. Ladd 
declined all solicitations to become a candidate for 
public office — his uniform reason given being that 
he was a business man and not trained in the 
school of politics — until in 1889 he was induced to 
become the Republican candidate for governor. 
Upon taking office, Governor Ladd undertook the 
advocacy of many measures in the interests of his 
state and its people, that bore abundant fruit before 
his final retirement from administration, bringing 



to his executive duties the same energy and pro- 
gressive spirit that had characterized him in his 
private business. He received an emphatic en- 
dorsement for re-election at the hands of his party 
in 1890, but owing to causes for which he was 
in no wise responsible, the Republicans were that 
year defeated. He was again made the standard- 
bearer in 1 89 1, however, and was elected to his 
second term. His record of two years in the exec- 
utive office is a brilliant one, marked everywhere 
by energetic and progressive work. He was 
among the first in the country to actively push the 
movement for good roads, the result of his efforts 
being that Rhode Island now has a model road 
law. The State Agricultural School at Kingston, in 
its infancy when he took the reins of government, 
was rapidly developed through his interest in its 
behalf. The establishment of the Soldiers' Home 
at Bristol is another notable feature of his public 
work. The agricultural and educational interests 
of the state commanded his enthusiastic support, 
and biennial elections, improved tax laws, the early 
closing' of polls, the elevation of the ofifice of 
Governor to that enjoyed by the executives of other 
states, were all urgently advocated. A notable 
awakening in the state's educational affairs followed 
an address before the Rhode Island Institute of 
Instruction on illiteracy and educational methods 
pursued in the state, and he gave practical em- 
phasis to his interest by the presentation of a mag- 
nificently equipped observatory, said to have cost 
$40,000, to Brown LTniversity, the University recog- 
nizing the splendid gift by conferring on the donor 
the honorary degree of Master of Arts. An enduring 
and notable monument that will long serve as a 
worthy tribute to his administration is the new 
State Capitol building, now in process of construc- 
tion, to be the finest marble edifice in America. 
Governor Ladd took up the question of Rhode 
Island's need for a State Capitol in his usual enter- 
prising fashion, his first message containing pictures 
of the state buildings all over the country, by which 
was contrasted Rhode Island's poor edifice. The 
plans for the new capitol were secured after a scheme 
that is to-day quoted by architectural authorities as 
a model for the whole country. Tiirough all his 
business and political career Governor Ladd took 
an unfailing interest in public and social affairs. 
He was the founder and father of the famous Provi- 
dence Commercial Club, an organization of busi- 
ness men that meets monthly, and after a good 
dinner, discusses leading questions of the day, and at 




o^^o.^^e.o^/t:;^A;^^l^^-^^ 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



189 



whose board distinguished men from all over the 
land consider it an honor to be invited to sit. The 
club reached the highest point of prosperity and 
influence under his Presidency. Eminent states- 
men addressed its members from time to time, and 
its notable entertainment of the Commercial Club 
and the Merchants' Club of Boston and a com- 
mittee of the United States Senate, will never be 
forgotten. He was for two years vice-President of 
the Providence Board of Trade, was for several years 
President of the Rhode Island Society for the Pre- 
vention of Cruelty to Children, for which society he 
was chiefly instrumental in securing a fine home, and 
is a member of and has been a large contributor to 
the Young Men's Christian Association. He is also 
vice-President of the New England Genealogical 
Society of Boston, has been for several years Presi- 
dent of the Rhode Island School of Design, and is 
a member of the Hope, Athletic and Press clubs of 
Providence, and other organizations. He is a 
Director in the Atlantic National Bank of Provi- 
dence, but although frequently invited to fill a 
similar position in the larger financial institutions of 
the city, he has been unable to give to them the 
time which he felt their importance demanded. The 
movement for enlarged and improved railway ter- 
minal facilities for the city and faster train service, 
in 1876, found in him an earnest supporter. He 
called the meeting of the famous committee of one 
hundred that met before the municipal election to 
take steps to elect a city council favorable to the so- 
called " Goddard Plan" for railroad terminals, a 
movement that in 1884 was the beginning and in- 
spiration of the awakening that has slowly and surely 
resulted in the plans finally adopted, after hard 
battles and despotic jealousies that time has not even 
yet obliterated. Governor Ladd was married. May 
25, 1870, to Miss Emma Frances, daughter of Caleb 
Gerald and Elizabeth (Holmes) Burrows of Provi- 
dence ; she died just as her husband entered upon 
his duties as Governor. Of six children, only two 
are living : Elizabeth Burrows and Hope Ladd. 



LAPHAM, Oscar, lawyer, was born in Burrill- 
ville, R. I., June 29, 1837, son of Duty and Lucinda 
(VVheelock) Lapham. His great-grandfather, Solo- 
mon Lapham, who came from Massachusetts to the 
town, then Gloucester, about 1750, was an exten- 
sive land owner and farmer. His grandfather, Wil- 
liam, was a farmer. His father was first a carpenter, 
then a farmer, a leader in town affairs, frequently 



President of the Town Council, and member of the 
General Assembly, and an authority on probate law. 
He received his early education in the district 
schools of the town, such as they were, and in dif- 
ferent boarding schools, prepared for college at the 
University Grammar School of Providence, entered 
Brown University and graduated in the class of 
1864. During the Civil War he served as Lieuten- 
ant, Adjutant and Captain in the Twelfth Regiment 
Rhode Island Volunteers. His training for active 
life consisted in manual labor on the farm, study at 
home, teaching school, the instruction of a father of 
extraordinary good sense, and the school of expe- 
rience in the army. He adopted the law as his 




OSCAR LAPHAM, 

profession, was admitted to the Rhode Island Bar in 
1867, and estabhshed an office in Providence, where 
he has continued to reside and has enjoyed an exten- 
sive and lucrative practice up to the present time. 
Mr. Lapham has always taken an active part in poli- 
tics as a Democrat, and has been honored by his 
party by many important nominations in municipal 
and state campaigns. In 1887-88 he represented 
the city of Providence in the State Senate and was 
Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He was 
elected a Representative in Congress for the First 
District of Rhode Island in 1891, and re-elected 
for the succeeding term. He is a trustee of Brown 
University and a member of the Advisory and Ex- 



igo 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



ecutive Committee of the University. For many 
years he was Colonel of the United Train of Artillery, 
of Providence. He is a member of Squantum and 
Hope clubs, of the Providence Athletic Association 
and the Press clubs. He was married, June 20, 
1876, to Miss Clara Louise Paine, of Providence; 
they have no children living. 



LEACH, George, engineer and architect, Prov- 
idence, was born in Naples, Maine, September 16, 




GEO. LEACH. 

1843, soi^ o'' Samuel and Martha (Mayberry) 
Leach. His parental grandparents were Samuel 
and Anna (Clark) Leach, and his maternal Daniel 
and Betsy (Nash) Mayberry, all of Cumberland 
county, Maine. He received his early education in 
the public schools. His father was a millwright 
and the early portion of his life was spent with him 
in that and kindred trades. Later he took up 
machinery designing and mechanical engineering. 
He has been employed in responsible positions 
connected with that class of work by the Saco 
Water Power Machine Shop, Eiddeford, Me. ; the 
South Boston Iron Works ; the United States Navy 
Yard, Portsmouth, N. H. ; the Whitehead & Atherton 
Machine Company, Lowell, Mass., and the Brown 
& Sharpe Manufacturing Company, Providence. 
Since coming to Providence in 1891 he has been 



engaged in the designing and erection of the new 
buildings of the Brown & Sharpe Manufacturing 
Company, superintending the construction of the 
Merchants' Freezing & Cold Storage Company's 
plant, designing and superintending the construction 
and fitting up of the Oakdale Manufacturing Com- 
pany's plant, and other work of a similar nature in 
and about Providence. He takes no active interest 
in politics, societies or religion, although he is 
very much interested in them all to the extent of 
being enlightened in all points pertaining to them 
and a life of morality. His pursuits being entirely 
mechanical and not being of very robust health, his 
time is largely taken up with his business, with only 
slight variation for recreation and rest. He married, 
in 1868, Miss Ester J. Edgecomb 3 they have one 
child : Mattie M. Leach. 



LEAVITT, Edward Chalmers, artist. Provi- 
dence, was born in Providence, March 9, 1842, son 
of Rev. Jonathan and Charlotte Esther (Stearns) 




EDWARD C. LEAVITT. 

Leavitt. His paternal ancestor was John Leavitt, 
who came to Massachusetts Bay in the first ship 
and settled in Hingham, and on the maternal side 
he is de.scended from John Alden and Priscilla 
Mullens, who came to Plymouth in the Mayflower. 
He was educated in private schools in Providence, 
and at Kimball Union Academy, Meriden, New 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



191 



Hampshire. During the Civil War, in 1862 and 
1863, he served in the navy on the U. S. S. Galena. 
In his profession of artist Mr. Leavitt is especially 
noted as a painter of fruit, flowers and still life. 
He exhibited in the National Academy for several 
years, and has made many successful exhibitions in 
Providence and Boston. He is a member of the 
Boston and Providence art clubs, and the Providence 
Press Club. He is also a member of the Grand 
Army of the Republic. In politics his proclivities 
are mainly Republican. He has been twice married : 
first, May 19, 1877, to Ellen M. Fuller; and second, 
April 22, 1880, to Elizabeth S. Chace. 



LEE, Thomas Zanslaur, Justice of the District 
Court of the Twelfth Judicial District of Rhode 
Island, was born in Woonsocket, September 26, 
1866, son of Thomas and Ellen (Monahan) Lee. 
His education was acquired in the public schools of 
Woonsocket and at St. Bernard's Academy, supple- 




firm of Browne & Van Slyck, was admitted to the 
Rhode Island bar in August 1888, and after a short 
professional association with Col. Walter R. Stiness, 
of Providence, established himself in his native city, 
where he has won a large and lucrative practice. 
In May 1888 he was elected Recording Clerk of 
the Rhode Island House of Representatives, and 
held the position until May 1889. In January 
1889 he was elected Coroner of the city of Woon- 
socket, and served in that capacity three years. In 
May 189 r, he was elected Reading Clerk of the 
House of Representatives, was re-elected in 1892, 
was again elected in 1894, unanimously, and unani- 
mously re-elected in 1895 and 1896, On February 
3, 1893, at the age of twenty-six, he was elected 
Justice of the District Court of the Twelfth Judicial 
District, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of 
Judge Charles F. Ballou, being at the time of his 
election the youngest justice presiding over a court 
on record in the United States. Two years later, in 
May 1895, he was unanimously re-elected, after one 
of the most spirited political contests that Northern 
Rhode Island has ever seen. It is a noteworthy 
fact of his judicial career, that since his elevation to 
the bench no decision of Judge Lee's court has ever 
been overruled, nor has any exception to his rulings 
been sustained, by either division of the Supreme 
Court. Judge Lee is a iTiember of the Providence 
Athletic Association, the Union Club, the Rhode 
Island Yacht Club, the Providence Press Club, the 
United Company of the Train of Artillery, all of 
Providence, and of the High School Association, 
Young Business Men's Club and St. Anne's Gym- 
nasium, of Woonsocket. He is a Past Grand in 
Woonsocket Lodge No. 10, and a member of the 
Grand Lodge of Rhode Island, I. O. O. F. ; also 
Past Chancellor in Myrtle Lodge No. i, and mem- 
ber of the Grand Lodge of Rhode Island, Knights 
of Pythias. In poUtics he is a Republican. He is 
unmarried. 



THOMAS Z. LEE. 

mented by special courses of study with private 
tutors. His earlier experience in the active duties 
of life was in the mechanical department of news- 
paper work, during a connection of two and a half 
years with the Woonsocket Reporter. Following 
this he read law in the office of the well-known legal 



LEWIS, James Noyes, M. D., Ashaway, was 
born in Pawcatuck, town of Stonington, Conn,, 
October 30, 1849, son of Dr. Daniel and Ann Frances 
(Kenyon) Lewis. The Lewises were among the 
first settlers of what are now the towns of Westerly 
and Hopkinton, R. I., and the genealogy can be 
traced back six generations. His grandfather, 
Christopher C. Lewis, was the town clerk of Hop- 
kinton for more than forty years, and his great-grand- 
father. Dr. James Noyes, was a practitioner in 



192 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Westerly fifty years ago. His mother was the 
daughter of Dr. Joseph D. Kenyon, late of Hopkin- 
ton. Thus it is seen that his professional tastes, to 
say nothing of his skill, were inherited from both 
sides. His father died in Ashaway, R. I., in 1859, 
when James was but ten years old. He was edu- 
cated in the common schools of his native town and 
at Hopkinton Academy, spent one year at Alfred 
University, Alfred, N. Y., and graduated in medicine 
at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia 



29, 1876, to Miss Lois Clarke, daughter of Hon. Hal- 
sey P. Clarke of Richmond, R. I., and the union has 
been blessed by two daughters : Susie C, born July 
5, 1882, and Hattie D. Lewis, born Dec. 9, 1891. 




JAMES N, LEWIS. 

College, New York City, March 3, 1874. Before 
graduation he studied and practiced medicine four 
years with Dr. John D. Kenyon at Ashaway, R. I. 
Since his graduation he has practiced continuously 
in the town of Hopkinton, R. L, with the exception 
of four years spent in Killingly and Plainfield, Conn., 
and for the last fourteen consecutive years in Asha- 
way. Owing to the long illness and subsequent death 
of his father, Dr. Lewis's early life was spent in farm 
labor and in teaching to obtain the means of com- 
pleting his education. But by perseverance, hard 
work and strict attention to business, he accomphshed 
his purpose in life, and now enjoys the fruits of a 
successful and lucrative practice. He was one of the 
charter members, and is at present Vice-President 
of the Washington County Medical Society, but 
although strongly Republican in politics, has never 
held any public ofifice. He was married, November 



LINCOLN, Levi Cook, Treasurer and Manager 
of the Woonsocket Electric Machine and Power 
Company, was born in Providence, April 15, 1858, 
son of Samuel and Ohve (Cook) Lincoln. His 
father was a native of Hingham, Mass., and his 
mother was a daughter of Capt. Amos and Ohve 
(Darling) Cook, of Cumberland, R. I. He was 
educated in the public schools, and after leaving 
the high school in Lonsdale he entered Mowry & 
Goff's English and Classical School in Providence, 
from which he graduated June 16, 1875. From 
May I, 1877, to January i, 1888, a period of nearly 
eleven years, he served as clerk in the Citizens' 
National Bank of Woonsocket. In October 1883 
he took charge of the Woonsocket Electric Machine 
and Power Company, and has served as the Treas- 




L. C. LINCOLN. 

urer and Manager of that corporation ever since. 
Mr. Lincoln is a member of Woonsocket Lodge and 
Palestine Encampment of Odd Fellows, Myrtle 
Lodge Knights of Pythias, Fountain Division Sons 
of Temperance, and the Woonsocket Business Men's 
Association. In politics he is a Republican. He 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



193 



was married, April 27, 1877, to Miss Anjanette 
Bailey ; they have one child, a daughter, Florence 
C. Lincoln, born May 14, 1878. 



LITTLEFIELD, Nathan Whitman, attorney-at- 
law, Providence, was born in East Bridgewater, Plym- 
outh County, Mass., May 21, 1846, son of Rufus 
Ames and Abigail Russell (Whitman) Littlefield. 
Both parents are living at East Bridgewater and cele- 
brated their golden wedding June 10, 1895. Rufus 
Ames Littlefield is a lineal descendant of Edmund 
Littlefield, who came to Boston from England in 
the year 1636 and who afterwards settled at Wells, 




NATHAN W. LITTLEFIELD. 

Me., where he erected the first mill in that region 
and did much to develop the manufacturing indus- 
tries of that place. One of the descendants of 
Edmund Littlefield was Daniel Littlefield, who very 
early settled in what is now West Bridgewater, 
Mass., and was the progenitor of the branch of the 
family of which several generations have resided in 
that and neighboring towns. Rufus Ames Little- 
field is related to the Ames family of North Easton, 
Mass., of which Ex-Gov. Oliver Ames was a 
member, and also to the Standishes of the Old Col- 
ony. Abigail Russell (Whitman) Littlefield is a 
lineal descendant of John Whitman of Weymouth, 



Mass., whose son Thomas was one of the first resi- 
dents of the ancient town of Bridgewater, Mass., 
where he settled about the year 1662, and who was 
the progenitor of a family which has given to the 
nation Dr. Marcus Whitman, the Savior of Oregon ; 
Ezekiel Whitman, for many years Chief Justice of 
the Superior and Supreme Courts of the State of 
Maine, and a large number of men who have been 
eminent in professional life, in business and as 
educators ; like their ancestor, John Whitman, his 
descendants have been broad-minded and liberal 
men, very self-reliant, yet unassuming, tenacious of 
their own opinions, yet tolerant of the opinions of 
others even in times when toleration was rare. She 
was educated at the Charlestown Female Seminary, 
at that time the best school for young ladies in 
Massachusetts, and was a very proficient scholar, 
especially in mathematics ; her mother was Saman- 
tha (Keith) Whitman, a Hneal descendant of James 
Keith, the first minister of Bridgewater, Mass., and 
a woman of great amiabihty and strength of char- 
acter ; she is also a descendant of John and Priscilla 
Alden. Nathan W. Littlefield was educated in the 
common schools of East Bridgewater, at Bridge- 
water Academy, and at Phillips Academy, Andover, 
Mass., where he was graduated in 1865. The same 
year he entered Dartmouth College and was gradu- 
ated in 1869, the Centennial of the College, with 
the highest honors. At that time Dartmouth had 
the finest college gymnasium in the country, and he 
was a recognized leader in athletics from the first, 
being chosen captain of his class during his fresh- 
man year, which position he held during the entire 
course, and was also for two years an assistant in- 
structor of gymnastics in the college. After gradu- 
ation he entered upon educational work and was 
for several years Principal of the High School of 
Newport, R. L The report of the Superintendent 
of Schools of that city for the year 1872-73, refer- 
ring to his departure to another field, says : " Mr. 
Littlefield is a man of sound and liberal scholarship, 
and an efficient teacher and earnest worker. His 
amiable disposition and rare virtues have endeared 
him to his pupils and associates ; and I am sure that 
we share deeply in their regrets that the school 
must lose his labors and influence." The following 
year he was Principal of the High School and 
Superintendent of the Schools of the village of 
Westerly, R. I., which position he resigned, 
although assured of a large increase of salary if he 
would remain, to enter upon the work of preparation 
for his chosen profession; and in October 1874 he 



194 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



entered the Law School of Boston University, from 
which he was graduated in 1876, and was soon after 
admitted to the Boston Bar, but entered upon the 
practice of the law at Providence in January 1877. 
His practice has been exclusively upon the civil 
side of the court, and largely in equity and probate 
cases and in the law of real estate, in which, from 
the beginning of his professional career, he has been 
engaged in some of the most important litigation 
which has come before the Rhode Island courts, 
both as regards the legal principles involved and the 
pecuniary interests at stake. A recent case involv- 
ing the titles to several large tracts of land taken by 
the city of Providence for park purposes was one 
of the most involved and difficult which ever came 
before the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, and 
resulted in the complete estabhshing of the titles of 
his client and an award of nearly a quarter of a 
million of dollars as damages. In 1893 he was 
appointed a Standing Master in Chancery. He is 
a member of several fraternal organizations, also of 
the Business Men's Association, and the Patria Club • 
of Pawtucket. In politics he is a Democrat of the 
Jeffersonian school, and has been the candidate of 
his party for State Representative and Senator from 
Pawtucket. On August 13, 1873, he was married 
to Miss Arietta V. Redman, daughter of Hon. 
Erastus Redman of Ellsworth, Me., who died at 
Providence, October 18, 1879; 01^ April 20, 1877, 
a son was born to them, Nathan W. Littlefield, Jr. 
December i, 1886, he was married to Miss Mary 
Wheaton Ellis, daughter of Asher EUis of Paw- 
tucket; on December 19, 1889, a son was born to 
them, Alden Llewellyn Littlefield. 



LYNCH, John Edward, Providence, was born in 
Blackburn, England, August 22, 1867, son of Mau- 
rice and Margaret (Downey) Lynch. He came to 
America with his parents at an early age, and was 
educated in the public schools of Rhode Island. 
Entering mto mercantile life, he followed the retail 
grocery trade from 1879 to 1890, and in the latter 
year engaged in the undertaking business, which he 
has since conducted successfully to the present 
time. Mr. Lynch has served three terms as Re- 
cording Secretary of the Young Men's Lyceum and 
Social Club, is Treasurer of Court Thomas A. 
Doyle, No. 21, Foresters of America, and is a mem- 
ber of Tyler Council Knights of Columbus and 
Branch 399, Catholic Knights of America. He is 
unmarried. 



McGUINNESS, Edwin Daniel, Mayor of Provi- 
dence in 1896, was born in Providence, May 17, 
1856, son of Bernard and Mary (Gormley) Mc- 
Guinness. His ancestry on both sides is Irish. 
He received his early education in the public 
schools of Providence, was fitted for college in the 
high school, entered Brown University and gradu- 
ated in the class of 1877. He adopted the law as 
a profession, entered Boston University Law School 
in 1877, and graduated therefrom with the degree 
of Bachelor of Laws in 1879, and was admitted to 
the Rhode Island Bar July i, 1879. Since that time 
he has been engaged in active practice, and has re- 
ceived an extensive and profitable clientage. Mr. 
McGuinness has always taken an active interest in 
public affairs. He was elected Secretary of State 
of Rhode Island in 1887, and again in 1890. He 
was Alderman from the Third Ward from Septem- 
ber 1889 to January 1893. He received the unani- 
mous nomination of the Democratic convention for 
Mayor in 1893 and 1894, and, although not elected, 
his vote was a flattering testimonial of his personal 
popularity among his fellow-citizens. In the muni- 
cipal election of 1895 ^e was elected Mayor of the 




J. E. LYNCH. 



city of Providence for the year 1896, receiving the 
support of a large independent vote. In politics 
he is a Democrat and has always been active and 
influential in the councils of liis party. He was 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



195 



Adjutant of the Fifth Battalion Rhode Island Mili- 
tia from 1879 to 1881, and Major from 1881 to 
1887. He has been Supreme Trustee of the Cath- 
olic Knights of America since 1889, and was Presi- 
dent of the Brownson Lyceum for two years. He 
is a member of the American Bar Association, the 




E. D. McGUlNNESS. 

Rhode Island Historical Society, the Brownson Ly- 
ceum, the Providence Athletic Association, the 
Press Club, and Reform Club of New York. Mayor 
McGuinness was married, November 22, 1881, to 
Miss Ellen T. Noonan ; they have one child : Mary 
Frances McGuinness, born October 8, 1S82. 



MASON, Arthur Livingston, Treasurer and Gen- 
eral Manager of the Continental Steamboat Com- 
pany, Providence, was born in Providence, February 
24, 1852, son of Earl P. and Lucy Ann (Larcar) 
Mason. Mr. Mason's mother was descended from 
an old French family. His father. Earl P. Mason 
(March 10, 1804 — September 21, 1876), tenth child 
of Pardon Mason and Anna Hail, was identified 
with many of the important industries of New 
England. Pardon Mason (August 14, 1758 — May 
18, 1845) was eleventh child of Nathan Mason and 
Lillias Hail. He was the youngest of the six broth- 
ers whose names appear so frequently on the rolls 
of the Revolution. The history of Cheshire, Mass., 



tells us that Pardon and four of his brothers were 
in the hot fight at Bennington and that they were 
so begrimed with powder they did not recognize 
each other when they met on the field after the 
battle. Pardon returned to Providence but the 
other brothers remained in the New Providence 
settlement, later incorporated with Adams. Nathan 
Mason (May 10, 1705 — May 1758) was one of the 
ten children of Deacon Isaac Mason (July 15, 1667 
— June 25, 1742). He in turn was one of thirteen 
children of Sampson Mason and Mary Butterworth. 
Sampson, a dragoon in Oliver Cromwell's army, and 
one of the famous Ironside Troop who received the 
trite advice to " Trust in God and keep your pow- 
der dry," emigrated to Boston about 1649, and after 
living in Dorchester about seven years, started with 
Obadiah Holmes in search of greater freedom and 
became a large proprietor of land in Rehoboth and 
one of the owners of the North Purchase, since 
Altleboro; he died September 15, 1876, respected 
by all. The subject of this sketch received his 
early education in private schools in Providence, 




A. LIVINGSTON MASON, 

until 1865, then three years in France and Germany. 
In 1868 he returned to America, entered Mowry & 
Goff's English and Classical High School, and in 
1870 took a special course in Brown University. 
From 1871 to 1873 he worked in a woolen mill to 
learn the details of the manufacture of woolen goods, 



196 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



and about 1873 became junior partner in the woolen 
manufacturing firm of Needham, Mason & Company. 
A few years later Mr. Needham retired from the 
business and the firm name was changed to C. F. 
Mason & Company. The new firm had hardly paid 
for Mr. Needham's interest when the manufactory, 
Farnum Mill Number Three, situated in Waterford, 
Mass., was totally destroyed by fire, involving a heavy 
loss. With a reduced capital the firm commenced 
business again in the Saxon Mills, situated in Put- 
nam, Conn., and later purchased the property. 
Through the failure of their commission house in 
New York the firm became financially embarrassed, 
and after making a satisfactory settlement of its in- 
debtedness, went into liquidation. During the fatal 
illness of his father, Earl P. Mason, in September 
1876, Mr. Mason was appointed one of the Trustees 
of the estate, which position he held for ten years. 
When the property was merged into the Earl P. 
Mason Land Company he was elected Vice-President 
of the corporation. He was also a Trustee of the 
estate of Isaac Hartshorn in 1877. In 1883, April 
28, Mr. Mason was elected Treasurer and General 
Manager of the Continental Steamboat Company. 
After getting an insight into the business he found 
that many reforms would have to be made, as well 
as great economies, before the business could be 
made remunerative to the stockholders. He found 
the position a most difficult one at first, as he knew 
but httle of the details of the business and his 
efforts at reform and economy met with but little 
favor from his subordinates. Finding that it was 
impossible to do justice to his stockholders or to 
himself under the existing circumstances, he made 
a clean sweap of all the employes who were hostile 
to him and put in new men who would work in his 
interest. A change for the better soon became 
apparent, the business increased largely, and the 
fleet of boats had to be augmented. During his 
administration two lines of opposition steamboats 
have been satisfactorily disposed of, the entire float- 
ing indebtedness has been retired and the company 
put upon a permanent dividend-paying basis. Mr. 
Mason is also Secretary of the Rhode Island Loco- 
motive Works, to which position he was elected 
May I, 1883. He is a member of the Providence 
Art Club, Lincoln Library Association, Rhode Island 
Historical Society, New York Society Sons of the 
Revolution, and while in college was a member of 
the Psi Upsilon Society of Brown University. He 
resigned his membership in the Hope Club of Prov- 
idence in 1895, having moved his residence to New- 



port. He is also a member of the corporation of 
the Providence Lying-in Hospital. Mr. Mason is 
the founder of the Providence Symphony Orchestra 
and has been its Business Manager since its organi- 
zation about 1879. The orchestra numbers over 
fifty of the leading amateur musicians of the state, 
members coming from Newport, Bristol, Pawtucket 
and the suburbs of Providence to attend the weekly 
rehearsals held in the rooms of the Providence Art 
Club. The orchestra is strictly private, no public 
concerts being given. Mr. Mason was born in the 
Mason homestead on Benefit Street, and lived there 
until his marriage, spending his summers in New- 
port. Shortly after his marriage he purchased a 
residence on Keene Street, Providence, and in 
June 1894 removed to Newport, occupying Hahdon 
Hall, the handsome residence formerly occupied by 
Dr. Isaac Hartshorn. He was married, June 30, 
1875, to Miss Edith Bucklin, daughter of Dr. Isaac 
and Eliza Dayton (Gardiner) Hartshorn; they 
have had four children: Earl P., Edith Livingston, 
Marguerite Schuyler and Liona Gardiner Mason ; the 
last named died October 6, 1893, in Paris, France. 



MASON, Robert Albertus, Chief Engineer of 
the Westerly Fire Department, was born in Paw- 
tucket, October 16, 1850, son of Henry Franklin 
and Matilda Rider (Lapham) Mason, of English 
and Scotch ancestry. He attended the pubhc 
schools of Providence, graduating from the Bridgham- 
street grammar school in 1865. Between the ages 
of sixteen and nineteen he \vorked on a farm at 
Evans Centre, Erie county, New York, and in 1869 
entered the foundry of the Rhode Island Locomo- 
tive Works in Providence to learn the moulder's 
trade. He remained in that establishment until 
1880, and from that time until May 1882, was em- 
ployed in the foundry department of William A. 
Harris, Providence. He then started a foundry for 
the Lamphear Machine Company, at Phenix, R. I., 
but left there in the following August to take charge 
of the foundry of C. B. Cottrell & Sons' printing 
press manufactory at Westerly, which position he 
now holds. Mr. Mason has served as Captain of 
Capt. George W. Steadman Camp Sons of Veterans, 
of Westerly, from December 1889 to February 1891 ; 
Major of the Rhode Island Division Sons of Veterans, 
from February 1891 to February 1892 ; and as Chief 
Engineer of the Westerly Fire Department from 
November 1892 to the present time. He received 
the Master Mason's degree in What Cheer Lodge 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



197 



No. 21 of Providence in 1872, joined Pawcatuck 
Lodge No. 90 of Pawcatuck, Conn., in 1886 and 
was elected Worshipful Master in 1894. He joined 
Palmer Chapter Royal Arch Masons No. 28 in 1884; 
was chosen High Priest in 1887, 1888, 1889 and 
1892, joined Narragansett Commandery No. 27 




ROBERT A. MASON. 

of Knights Templar in 1885, and was elected Emi- 
nent Commander in 1893 and 1894; he was made 
a shriner in Palestine Lodge, Mystic Shrine, at New- 
port in 1887, and received the thirty-second degree, 
Scottish Rite, at Providence in 1888. He is first 
Past Chancellor of Bowen Lodge Knights of Pythias, 
of Westerly. He is also a member of the Westerly 
Business Men's Association. In politics he is a 
Republican. Mr. Mason was married September 
7, 1876, to Miss Fannie Earl Hixon. They have 
two children : Fannie Alice, now eighteen years of 
age, and Robert Edgar Leroy Mason, aged sixteen 
years. 



MATHIEU, Joseph Edouard Victor, M. D., 
Central Falls, was born in St. Barnabe, county of 
St Hyacinthe, Province of Quebec, August 8, 1856, 
son of Edouard and Rosalie (Lapre) Mathieu. His 
ancestors on both sides came from Normandie, 
France, about the sixteenth century, and with others 
of the name were among the first settlers of the 
Island of Orleans, near the city of Quebec. His 



father was born in St. Ours, Richelieu, P. Q., and 
when twenty-two years old removed to St. Barnabe, 
where he engaged in business, keeping a country 
store and exporting the farmers' produce ; he was 
Postmaster for sixteen years, and Mayor for twenty 
years; in 1872 he removed to the city of St. Hya- 
cinthe, accepting a railroad agency, a position which 
he occupied until his death in 1895. Joseph's 
mother was born in St. Barnab^, and was educated 
in the convent of La Presentation at St. Hyacinthe. 
He received his early education in the parochial 
school until the age of eleven, when he entered the 
St. Hyacinthe Seminary and pursued a classical 
course. He studied medicine at the Victoria Uni- 
versity of Montreal, from which he received his 
degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1879, and soon 
after graduation came to Rhode Island, engaging in 
the practice of his profession in Central Falls, where 
he has since resided. Dr. Mathieu has held the 
office of Coroner for the city of Central Falls since 
1893, and is Medical Examiner for the Equitable 
Life Assurance Society of New York, and the New 




J. E. V. MATHIEU. 

"\'ork Mutual Reserve Fund Association ; also Phy- 
sician for the Loyal Mount Hope Lodge of Odd 
Fellows, Court Flower Dexter of the Ancient Order 
of Foresters of America, Lodge 277 Order of the 
Sons of St. Georges, Lady Lincoln Lodge 46 Order 
of the Daughters of St. Georges, the Association of 



198 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



St. Jean Baptiste, of Central Falls, and the Catholic 
Knights of America. He is a member of the 
Pawtucket Medical Society and the Rhode Island 
Medical Society, also of most of the local socie- 
ties and social organizations. Dr. Mathieu was 
married, February 14, 1882, to Miss Amanda 
Blanche Richer, of St. Hyacinthe, P. Q. ; they 
have had three children : Yvonne, born February 
22, 1883, died February 28, 1885 ; Bertha Corinne, 
born December 25, 1885, and Estelle Marie Mathieu, 
born in September 1890. 



MATTESON, Charles, Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court of Rhode Island, was born in 




CHARLES MATTESON. 

Coventry, R. I., March 21, 1840, son of Asahel 
and Julia M. (Johnson) Matteson. His father 
was a merchant of Coventry, and served for sev- 
eral years as a State Senator. His early education 
was acquired in a private school in Providence, 
and at the Providence Conference Seminary in East 
Greenwich, after which he served a clerkship of two 
years in his father's store. He then re-entered 
(Greenwich Academy, and in 1856 began a college- 
preparatory course of studies in the University 
Grammar School, Providence. The following year 
he entered Brown University, and in 1861 graduated 
from that institution. For a year after leaving 
college he studied law in the office of the United 



States District Attorney for Rhode Island, Hon. 
Wingate Hayes, and then entered Harvard Law 
School, in which he remained during the years 1862 
and 1863. Upon admission to the Rhode Island 
Bar, in January 1864, he began practice in Provi- 
dence, at first alone, but the succeeding year 
became associated with Mr. Hayes, his former pre- 
ceptor, under the firm name of Hayes & Matteson. 
The copartnership continued until July 187 1, when 
Mr. Matteson retired and devoted himself especially 
to corporation practice, becoming attorney and 
counsel for various corporations and later serving 
as Director and Trustee of several corporate institu- 
tions. His marked ability as a lawyer and his 
fidelity to important trusts led to his election to the 
bench of the Supreme Court in February 1875, to 
fill the vacancy resulting from the promotion of 
Judge Durfee to the Chief Justiceship, and in April 
1891, he succeeded to the position of Chief Justice, 
in which capacity he has since served, with honor 
to himself and with credit to the state. Judge 
Matteson was married, August 22, 1872, to Miss 
Belle Himes, daughter of Paul Himes, of Warwick, 
R. I. ; they have three sons : Archibald C, George 
A. and Paul Matteson. 



MILLER, Augustus Samuel, attorney- at-law, was 
born August 13, 1847, at Plainfield, Conn., the son 
of Simon Williams and Ann (Lawton) Miller. He 
is descended from Rev. Alexander Miller of Plain- 
field, Conn. (1711-1798), a staunch advocate of 
religious liberty in that state, a leader among those 
who " soberly dissented from the church established 
by Connecticut." Alexander Miller was the son of 
Robert Miller (1672-1727) who came to this coun- 
try at the close of the seventeenth century, and 
settled in Voluntown, Conn. He is also descended 
from Roger Williams through his paternal grand- 
mother, whose grandfather, Major Benjamin Potter, 
married Jemima ^Villiams, daughter of Joseph Wil- 
liams, Esq., grandson of Roger Williams. On his 
mother's side he is descended from the Lawtons of 
Portsmouth, R. I., who settled in .\quidneck in 1638. 
His grandfather, Darius Perry Lawton, was one of 
the earliest manufacturers in New England, having 
built a mill and begun the manufacture of woolens in 
Plainfield in 181 1. He received his early education 
in the public and private schools of Plainfield and 
prepared for college in Mowry & Goff' s English and 
Classical school, Providence. He entered Brown 
University and graduated in the class of 1871 with 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



199 



the degree of A. B., afterward receiving the degree 
of A. M. He adopted the law as his profession 
and was admitted to the Rhode Island Bar, April 
2, 1874. He was assistant clerk of the Supreme 
Court of Rhode Island from May 1873 to October 
1876. In June 1878 he formed a law partnership 




AUGUSTUS S, MILLER. 

with Hon. H. J. Spooner. The firm afterward be- 
came Spooner, Miller & Brown, by the admission of 
Arthur L. Brown, Esq. The firm becaine Miller & 
Brown, January i, 1885, and so continued till Janu- 
ary I, 1894, when it was dissolved. He was ad- 
mitted and qualified as attorney and counsellor in the 
United States Supreme Court Jan. 9, 1890. He has 
always enjoyed a large practice and been employed 
in a number of important cases. He has taken an 
active part in public life and politics. He was 
chairman of the Democratic City Committee in 
1881-83, member of the Common Council of Provi- 
dence 1885-87 and its President in 1887. He was 
elected a member of the House of Representatives 
of the General Assembly in 1884-85 and in 1889- 
91, and was Speaker of the House 1889 91. He 
was the Senator from Providence in the Rhode 
Island Senate 1893-94, and has received other im- 
portant nominations in State and municipal cam- 
paigns. He is President of the American Enamel 
Company, incorporated in 1866, the oldest and 
largest establishment of the kind in the country. 



doing enamelling of all kinds on wood and metal. 
He was President of the Franklin Lyceum in 1880. 
He is a member of the American Bar Association. 
He was a member of the Hope Club for nineteen 
years and its Vice-President for several years. He is 
a member, and was the first President, of the Young 
Men's Democratic Club. He is a member of the 
Athletic Club, Elmwood Club, Press Club, Art Club, 
Rhode Island Historical Society and Rhode Island 
State Fair Association. He has marked literary 
taste, and has written for the magazines and news- 
papers, when his avocation permitted. He mar- 
ried, February 17, 1881, Miss Elizabeth LeMoine 
Davis ; they have had two children : Mary Eleanor 
Davis (deceased) and William Davis. 



NEYLAN, Daniel James, M. D , Bristol, was 
born in New York city, November 27, 1852, son of 
James and Mary Neylan. He received his early 
education in the common schools, and entered the 
University of New York, from which he graduated 




D. J. NEYLAN. 

in 1885. He was a teacher of gymnastics for 
several years, an acrobat and professional gymnast 
for fifteen years and an animal trainer four years, 
with the John Robinson show, the Great Eastern, 
Stone & Murray's, Starr & Orton's, and several 
minstrel and variety shows. Dr. Neylan served as 



200 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Surgeon in the Rhode Island Militia in 1888-89. 
He is a Thirty-second degree Mason, is Past Regent 
in the Royal Arcanum, Past Master Workman of the 
Ancient Order United Workmen and is a member 
of the Knights of Pythias. He was married, July 
5, 1880, to Miss Elizabeth Baxter of Providence. 



NICHOLSON, Samuel Mowrv, President and 
General Manager of the Nicholson File Company, 
Providence, was born in Providence, February 25, 
1861, son of William Thomas and Elizabeth Dexter 
(Gardiner) Nicholson. His paternal ancestors were 
among the early Puritan settlers along the eastern 
shores of Massachusetts. On the maternal side he 
traces back to Sir Roger Movvry and Sir Thomas 




S. M. NICHOLSON. 

Gardiner, of England, and to Gabriel Bernon, the 
noted Huguenot, and is connected by birth with 
some of the oldest and most prominent families of 
Rhode Island. His early education was acquired 
in his native city, first in Miss Warren's Primary 
School, then in the public schools, and afterwards in 
Movvry & Goff's Classical School. In 1879, at the 
age of eighteen, he entered the employ of the Nich- 
olson File Company, of which his father was the 
founder and President, devoting the first year and a 
half to the mechanical dei)artment, and learning the 
different processes of the manufacture of files and 
rasps. He then entered the main office as clerk, 



acquiring a thorough knowledge of the book-keep- 
ing departments, and in 1881 was elected Secretary 
of the company. He subsequently made numerous 
trips throughout the United States and British 
Provinces in the interest of the company, widely 
extending his commercial acquaintance. In 1890 
he was elected a Director of the company, and in 
1891 he was made Vice-President. In November 
1893, upon the death of his father, he succeeded to 
the position of President and General Manager, 
which position he now holds. The company at 
present operates, in addition to the factories at 
Providence, the American File Works at Pawtucket, 
R. I., and the Great Western Works at Beaver Falls, 
Pa. There are about twelve hundred skilled work- 
men on the company's pay-rolls, and the products 
are sent to all parts of the globe. Mr. Nicholson is 
a Director of the following institutions and com- 
panies, located in Providence : Rhode Island Na- 
tional Bank ; Enterprise, State and American Mutual 
Fire Insurance companies ; and the Providence, Fall 
River and Newport Steamboat Company. He is 
Vice-President for Rhode Island of the National 
Association of Manufacturers, and a Director in the 
Exporters' Association of America. He is a mem- 
ber of the Hardware clubs of New York, Boston 
and Philadelphia, and of the Home Market Club of 
Boston ; also a member of the Providence Board 
of Trade, the Rhode Island Historical Society, the 
Hope, Squantum, Commercial and other clubs of 
Providence. In politics he is a Republican. He 
was married, November 17, 1886, to Miss Mary 
Jewett Coe, of Brooklyn, N. Y. ; they have two 
children : Paul Coe and Martha Jewett Nicholson. 



NO YES, Robert Fanning, M. D., Providence, 
was born in South Kingston, R. I., February 8, 
1850, son of Thomas W. and Julia Elma (Allen) 
Noyes. Dr. Noyes is a descendant of Rev. James 
Noyes, who was born in Cholderton, Wiltshire, 
England, in 1608, bred at Brazen-Nose College, 
Oxford, and emigrated from London to America in 
1634, in the ship Mary and John, in company 
with his brother Rev. Nicholas Noyes and his 
cousin Rev. Thomas Parker. He and his associates 
above referred to were Puritans and Nonconformists. 
They finally settled in 1635 in Newbury, now New- 
buryport, Mass., where Rev. Mr. Noyes and Rev. 
Mr. Parker were associated as teacher and pastor 
over the first church established in that town, and 
where Rev. Mr. Noyes in 1647 erected the Noyes 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



20I 



house which has been owned and occupied by those 
in lineal descent almost to the present day, or until 
within about two years. The subject of this sketch 
acquired his early education in the public school 
and at Mrs. S. H. Weeks' seminary in his native 
town, supplemented by private instruction in mathe- 




ROB'T F, NOYES. 

matics and languages under the tuition of Rev. J. 
H. Wells. Later he attended the Providence 
Conference Seminary at East Greenwich, the 
Friends' School in Providence, and the Connecticut 
Literary Institute at Suffield, Conn. At the age of 
nineteen, in March 1869, he began the study of 
medicine with Dr. Job Kenyon in Providence, and 
after one year at the Harvard Medical School in 
Boston and two years at the College of Physicians 
and Surgeons in New York City, graduated from 
the last named institution in February 1873. ^^ 
December of the same year he engaged in the 
practice of medicine and surgery in Providence, 
and has continued as a practitioner in that city ever 
since. Dr. Noyes was for several years Physician 
to Out-Patients at the Rhode Island Hospital in 
Providence, and is at the present time Visiting 
Physician to that institution, also Consulting Phy- 
sician and member of the Advisory Board of St. 
Joseph's Hospital in the same city. He has served 
as President of the Providence Medical Association 
(1891-93) and as President of the Rhode Island 



Medical Society (1893-95), and besides his member- 
ship in these medical organizations is a member of 
the Clinical Club of Providence. Although not a 
frequent Or voluminous writer, Dr. Noyes has con- 
tributed a number of valuable articles to the Trans- 
actions of the Rhode Island Medical Society. He 
was married, May 15, 1888, to Miss Katharine 
Rowland Gifford, daughter of Abraham R. and 
Meribah A. Gifford, of Westport, Mass. ; they have 
one child : Emily Gifford Noyes, born March 26, 
1892. 



O'LEARY, Charles, M. D., Providence, was born 
in Ireland in May 1832, son of Denis Wallace and 
Catherine (Cantel) O'Leary. He is descended on 
the paternal side from the old historic family of 
Wallace, of the Barony of Ardagh, County Cork, and 
one of his near relatives was Arthur O'Leary, the 
distinguished wit and writer. He was educated for 
Trinity College, Dublin, studied for honors and made 
entrance examination in October 1848; but owing 
to his father's death and reduced family circum- 




CHAS. O LEARY. 

stances, he was unable to pursue the course of studies 
contemplated, and came to America in May 1850. 
He entered Mount Mary's College at Emmetsburg, 
Md., continuing his studies and being occupied as 
tutor in Latin and Greek at the same time, receiving 
the degree of A. B. in 1851 and that of A. M. in 



202 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



1853, in which year he became Professor of Greek 
and Latin in that institution. In the meantime, in 
the intervals of vacation and during the year, he 
studied chemistry, natural philosophy and physiology 
under Dr. William E. A. Aiken, the Professor of these 
sciences in the college, and also Professor in the 
University of Maryland. He wrote and published 
a Greek Grammar in 1855, which was favorably re- 
ceived and accepted in the schools, but has been 
allowed to run out of print, the author having turned 
his attention to other pursuits. In 1856 he went to 
Cincinnati and commenced the study of medicine 
in the Medical College of Ohio, teaching, as before, 
two hours a day, in a college outside of the city. 
From there he went to the Long Island Medical 
College, Brooklyn, N. Y., where he received the 
degree of M. D. in July 1859. Returning to Cin- 
cinnati he was appointed to the chair of Chemistry 
and Physiology in the Medical College of Ohio, and 
lectured there two terms ; he was also visiting physi- 
cian to the St. John's and German hospitals. In 
September 1861 he entered into the United States 
service as Brigade Surgeon, with the rank of Major, 
serving on the staff of General Couch through the 
Peninsular and Maryland campaigns of that year. 
In December 1862 he was appointed Medical Direc- 
tor of the Sixth Corps, and served with that corps 
on the staff of General Sedgwick until February 1864, 
when at his own request he was relieved of duty in 
the field and assigned to various duties in New York 
and Philadelphia — to inspect hospitals and examine 
soldiers supposed to be detained therein without 
sufficient cause in the way of disability, and return 
them to the field ; to inspect the Provost Marshal 
department of the state of Pennsylvania, and to act 
as member of a board for the examination of invalid 
and disabled officers. In September of the same 
year he was ordered to the work of restoring to 
discipline two hospitals that had lapsed into a state 
of disorder and abuse — one in Philadelphia, the 
other in New Haven. Having accomplished this 
work he was assigned to the command of Lovel 
General Hospital, near Newport, R. I. ; and at the 
termination of the war, in December 1865, having 
settled the affairs of the hospital and closed it up, 
he was mustered out of service with the rank of 
Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. In the following May 
Dr. O'Leary went to Paris, where during his stay in 
1866-67 he attended the hospital clinics. He re- 
turned to America in October 1867, and in Septem- 
ber 1868 took up his residence in Providence, where 
he has since continued the practice of medicine and 



surgery. In 1875 he was appointed Visiting Surgeon 
to the Rhode Island Hospital ; this position he re- 
signed in 1893, but still remains Consulting Surgeon 
to that institution. He is a fellow of the Rhode 
Island Medical Society, and in 1881-82 was Presi- 
dent of that organization. Dr. O'Leary has written 
several papers that have been published, and which 
have been considered valuable contributions to med- 
ical science. A work written in the History of the 
Medical Department of the Army of the Potomac, 
by Dr. Letterman, Medical Director of the Army, 
reprints one of Dr. O'Leary's reports and pays him 
a high compliment for " efficient service of an un- 
usual character." He was married in October 1863, 
to Miss Louise, daughter of Clement Dietrich of 
Cincinnati, Ohio ; they have six children : Clement 
D., Arthur, Charles, Louise, Angela and Juliet 
O'Leary. 

OWEN, Franklin Pierce, member of the Rhode 
Island Bar, was born in Scituate, R. I., December 




FRANKLIN P. OWEN. 

27, 1853, son of Elisha B. and Mary E. (Mathew- 
son) Owen. He is of Welsh ancestry. He re- 
ceived his early education in the public schools and 
at Lapham Institute, Scituate, and in 1870 entered 
Amherst College, graduating in the class of 1874. 
Adopting the profession of law, he studied with 
George E. Webster, Esq., at Providence, and was 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



203 



admitted to the bar January 26, 1883. He has 
since practiced his profession in Providence. Mr. 
Owen has served in both branches of the State 
Legislature, as Senator in 1888 and 1889, and as 
Representative in 1892 and 1893. In poUtics he 
is a Democrat, and has been Chairman of the 
Democratic State Committee since 1889. He is a 
member of Temple Masonic Lodge No. 18, also of 
the Union Club and Providence Athletic Associa- 
tion. He was married, December 26, 1877, to Miss 
Mary S. Fisher ; they have three children : Sadie 
R., Mary F. and Edith R. Owen. Mrs. Owen 
died December 20, 1892. 



PENDLETON, Hon. James Monroe, late Presi- 
dent of the Niantic National Bank and Niantic 
Savings Bank, Westerly, was born at Pendleton Hill, 
North Stonington, Conn., January 10, 1822, son of 
General Nathan and Phoebe (Cole) Pendleton, and 
died February 16, 1889. He was the youngest son 
and tenth child in a family of twelve children. He 
was a descendant on his father's side of Major Brian 
Pendleton, who came from the mother country and 
settled in New England shortly after the arrival of 
the Mayflower in 1620, and became distinguished as 
a soldier and in the councils of government. Gen. 
Nathan Pendleton was a member of the Connecticut 
Legislature from iSioto 1826. The subject of this 
sketch received his early education in the district 
schools, and graduated from the Connecticut Liter- 
ary Institution in 1844, with high honors, following 
which he entered at once upon the active duties of 
a business life. In 1854 he was one of the incor- 
porators of the Niantic Bank of Westerly, and sub- 
sequently during seventeen years was its Cashier, the 
bank in the meantime having reorganized under the 
National Bank Act. At the time of his death he 
was President of the Niantic National Bank and also 
of the Niantic Savings Bank. From youth he took 
a deep interest in political science and public affairs, 
and his industry, ability, rectitude, patriotism and 
exemplary private life early won the public confi- 
dence, appreciation and esteem. He was elected 
to the State Senate for the years 1862-65 inclusive, 
in 1868 was a Delegate to the National Republican 
Convention in Chicago, and was chosen Presidential 
Elector the same year. He was elected to the 
Forty-second Congress in 1868, and re-elected to 
the Forty-third Congress, serving during the first 
session on the Committee on Printing and Revolu- 
tionary Claims, and subsequently on the Committee 



on the Revision of Laws, one of the most important 
in the House. Mr. Pendleton was a Delegate to 
the Republican National Convention of 1876, and in 
1878 he was elected to the Rhode Island House of 
Representatives, was re-elected each succeeding 
year until 1884, and held during several sessions the 
position of Chairman of the Committee on Finance. 
Mr. Pendleton was an earnest advocate of all measures 
which he believed to be conducive to the good of 
the community in which he lived or of the country 
at large. During the war he was President of the 
Union League in Westerly, and was largely instru- 
mental in enlisting soldiers for the defence of the 
government. For fifteen years he was a member of 
the State Board of Charities and Corrections, and a 
portion of the time its Chairman. He also held 
many offices in the Masonic fraternity. He was 
married, in 1847, to Miss Bethena A. Spencer, of 
Suffield, Conn., a lady whose talents and refined 
culture command the highest respect and esteem. 
Mr. Pendleton having no children, he manifested 
much liberality and kindness in the education of his 
nieces and nephews. In 1854, two children of his 
brother William were taken into his family for that 
purpose, one of whom, James M. Pendleton, became 
a Lieutenant in the army during the late Civil War, 
and died of fever contracted in the service. 
Another, Elizabeth P. Pendleton, whom Mr. Pendle- 
ton considered his adopted daughter, died Febru- 
ary 2, iSgr. In 1865, his brother having died, two 
others of the children were given a home, one of 
whom has since died, and the other. Rev. Charles 
H. Pendleton, graduated from Brown University in 
1878, and from Rochester Theological Seminary in 
1881. 



PERRY, Oliver Hazard, Chief of Police of Paw- 
tucket, was born in Hope Village, Scituate, R. I , 
June 10, 1834, the youngest of eleven children born 
to George C. and Thankful T. (Carpenter) Perry. 
He comes of good old Rhode Island stock. His 
ancestry were among the earliest settlers of the state, 
he being of the South Kingston Perrys, and a direct 
lineal descendant of Matthew C. and Commodore 
Oliver Hazard Perry. His early educational train- 
ing was received in the country school of his district, 
and in early life he engaged in mill work, with his 
brothers William G. and John R., first at Georgia- 
ville and later at Pawtucket. In June 1858 he was 
appointed to the position of cloth inspector at the 
Dunnell Print Works, which position he held up to 
November 1882, with the exception of the interval 



204 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



spent in the service of his country during the Rebel- 
lion. In 1861, at the call for volunteers, he en- 
listed in Company E, First Rhode Island Detached 
MiHtia, Captain Stephen R. Bucklin, receiving the 
rank of Corporal, and left Providence for the front 
April 20, 1861, under command of Colonel A. E. 
Burnside. After three months of service, during 
which time he was promoted to the rank of Sergeant, 
he was mustered out at Providence. He returned 
home and again enhsted May 26, 1862, in Company 
A, Ninth Regiment Rhode Island Infantry, Captain 




OLIVER H. PERRY. 

Robert McCloy, receiving the rank of Third Ser- 
geant on date of enlistment, and being promoted to 
the rank of First Sergeant June 20. This Company 
was mustered out September 2, after three months' 
service. Immediately upon his return home he in- 
stituted steps to recruit a company for the Twelfth 
Rhode Island Infantry. In this he was successful, 
and he enlisted with his company October 13, 1862, 
receiving the rank of Captain. This company served 
for nine months, being in several important engage- 
ments, notably the battle of Fredericksburg, and 
was mustered out at Providence on the 29th day of 
July, 1863. Mr. Perry, before and after his service 
in active defence of his country, was an energetic 
member of the time-honored Pawtucket Light 
Guards ; he joined the organization in its early for- 
mation, held every position from private to that oi 



Lieutenant-Colonel, which office he held at the time 
of disbandment, and has in his possession commis- 
sions signed by Governors Sprague, Smith, Burnside, 
Padelford and Howard. He resigned his position 
as inspector at Bunnell Print Works to accept the 
appointment of Chief of Police, November i, 1882, 
which office he held until May 1884, and was re-ap- 
pointed January 1886, at the inauguration of the 
city formation of government, and has held the 
office continuously to the present time. In early 
life he affiliated himself with the Masonic order, 
having been a member of Union Lodge No. 10 since 
1864; he is also a member of the Knights of 
Honor, the Grand Army of the Republic, and a 
charter member of Ossemequin Tribe of Red Men. 
Mr. Perry was married, September 5, 1855, to Miss 
Mary C, daughter of Joseph and Abby (Lecraw) 
Arnold, of Pawtucket; to them were born five 
children, four of whom, Byron T., Mrs. Samuel N. 
Hammond, Mrs. Fred G. Perry and Claude W. 
Perry, are now living and residents of Pawtucket. 



PETTIS, George Henry, City Sealer of Weights 
and Measures, Providence, was born in Pawtucket, 




GEO. H. PETTIS. 



R. I., March 17, 1834, son of Henry Nelson and 
Olive Graves (Parker) Pettis. His paternal ances- 
tors were among the early settlers of the town of 
Rehoboth. His maternal ancestors were of New 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



205 



Hampshire stock, and among them was Captain 
John Parker, distinguished at the battle of Lexington. 
He attended the pubHc schools in Cohoes, N.Y., until 
the age of ten. At twelve he entered the " poor 
boys' college," the printing office, from which he 
graduated at the age of fifteen. In 1 849 he moved 
to Providence, where he followed the occupation of 
a printer until 1854, when he went to California, 
arriving at San Francisco on June 1 7 of that year ; 
he was engaged in mining near Garrote, Tuolumne 
county, from June 1854 until May 1858, when he 
started for the Frazer River, British Columbia. This 
adventure not being successful, he resumed his 
occupation as a printer, and was employed on the 
Alta California and the Morning Call, and held a 
situation on the Herald when President Lincoln 
issued his call for troops from California. He 
entered the military service as Second Lieutenant of 
Company B, First California Infantry August 16, 
1861, was promoted to First Lieutenant of Company 
K January i, 1862, commanding the company 
nearly all the time until mustered out February 
15, 1865, when he was immediately mustered into 
service again as First Lieutenant of Company F, 
First New Mexico Infantry. He commanded Com- 
pany F until promoted to be Adjutant June i, 1865, 
and was finally mustered out September i, 1866, 
with the regiment, having served continually five 
years and fifteen days. He was in a number of 
skirmishes with the Apache and Navajo Indians, 
and was brevetted Captain of United States Volun- 
teers March 13, 1865, for "distinguished gallantry" 
in the battle of the Adobe Walls, Texas, with 
the Comanche and Kiowa Indians, November 25, 
1864, in which he commanded the artillery. In 
1868 Mr. Pettis removed from New Mexico to 
Providence, where he was engaged as a promoter 
of various enterprises. He served as a member of 
the Common Council from the Ninth Ward from 
June 1872 to January 1876, and was elected a 
Representative to the General Assembly in 1876 
and 1877. He was Boarding Officer of the port 
of Providence from 1878 to 1885. He was marine 
editor of the Providence Journal from 1885 to 1887. 
He is now Sealer of Weights and Measures and 
Superintendent of Street Signs and Numbers of 
Providence. He became a member of the Grand 
Army of the Republic by joining Kit Carson Post 
No. I, Department of New Mexico, in 1868, and 
joined Slocum Post No. 10, Department of Rhode 
Island, by transfer, in 1872, of which post he held 
the offices of Adjutant and Chaplain ; was a charter 



member of Arnold Post No. 4, Department of 
Rhode Island, in 1877, of which post he has held 
the positions of Officer of the Day and Senior Vice 
Commander ; was Chief Mustering Officer, Depart- 
ment of Rhode Island, in 1877 and 1879, and 
Assistant Mustering Officer in 1890; was a member 
of the National Council of Administration and a 
Delegate to the Twentieth National Encampment, 
held at San Francisco in 1886. He became a mem- 
ber of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of 
the United States, Commandery of California, 
November 10, 1886 ; is Corresponding Secretary of 
the Rhode Island Soldiers' and Sailors' Historical 
Society; Secretary of the United States Veteran 
Association of Providence ; a member of the 
Society of California Volunteers, also of the Society 
of California Pioneers of New England, was Presi- 
dent in 1891-92 of the California Volunteer Veteran 
Association, and is now Secretary and Treasurer of 
the same association. He is an Honorary Member 
of the Second Rhode Island Veteran Association ; 
Battery B Veteran Association ; Fourth Rhode 
Island Veteran Association ; and the Fifth Rhode 
Island and Battery F Veteran associations. He is 
a member of the Providence Press Club. Mr. 
Pettis was married in September 1859, at San 
Francisco, Cal. ; he has three children : George 
Henry, Jr., Annie Olive and Charles Lucian Pettis. 



POWE, Darius L., eclectic physician, was born 
in Canada, April 28, 1854, the son of Josiah and 
Mary (Grigg) Powe. His parents were both born in 
England. His father's ancestry can be traced in a 
direct Hne to George III., the name being rather a 
rare one. His mother was the eldest daughter of 
Dr. William Grigg, who practiced medicine in Can- 
ada for fifty-two years, and died in 1880. He re- 
ceived his early education in the public schools, and 
his physical training on his father's farm. He was 
early attracted to the study of medicine by the in- 
fluence of his grandfather, who was an allopathic 
physician, and from whom he received much of his 
early education ; but being of a liberal turn of mind 
he adopted the eclectic system, which he has since 
pursued. He graduated from the Eclectic Medical 
Institute of Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1881, and attended 
a post-graduate course in the New York Post-Grad- 
uate College and Hospital in 1891. He first prac- 
ticed his profession in Boston, Mass., in 1882-83, 
then in Falmouth, Mass., from 1884 to 1892. He 



206 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



then removed to Providence, where he has since 
successfully practiced. He has been a member of 
the Massachusetts Eclectic Medical Society since 
1882. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity 
and an Odd Fellow. He is a collaborator of the 
Massachusetts Medical Journal and a contributor to 




DARIUS L. POWE. 



other medical journals. He married, in 1885, Miss 
Mary F. Baker, eldest daughter of Captain N. P. 
Baker, of Falmouth, Mass. ; they have no children. 



RANDALL, Reuben G., banker and business 
man, Woonsocket, was born in Richmond, N. H., 
September 24, 1826, son of David and Ruth (Allen) 
Randall. His education was acquired in the public 
schools of his native town and at the Friends' School 
in Providence. After leaving school he was book- 
keeper for Dexter Ballou, manufacturer, at Woon- 
socket, eight years. In 1850 he became Cashier of 
the Railroad Bank, which in 1865 became the First 
National Bank of Woonsocket, and holds this posi- 
tion at the present time. He was made Treasurer 
of the People's Savings Bank in 1857 and is still 
serving in that capacity, and has been Treasurer of 
the Woonsocket Gas Company since 1859. He is 
also one of the Trustees of the Harris Institute, 
having held the office since 1863. Mr. Randall has 



always been deeply engaged in business, and has 
never held any public office. He was first married, 
in November 1853,10 Miss Sylvia Harrington. He 




REUBEN G. RANDALL. 



married, second. Miss Medora Cook, in June 1857 j 
they have two children : Willis C. Randall, and 
Ruth A., now the wife of Henry C. Hubbard, of 
Woonsocket. 



RAY, David Saunders, merchant. East Pro\i- 
dence, was born December 24, 1840, son of Robert 
and Mary P. (Graham) Ray. He received his early 
education in the public schools of Providence and 
of Rehoboth, Mass., and his training for active life 
was that which came from "paddling his own 
canoe " after the age of ten years. From ten to 
fourteen he worked on a farm and attended school, 
and at sixteen he was apprenticed to the shipbuild- 
ing trade, working for a year in the shipyard on 
Palmer River, at Barneysville, where he assisted in 
the building of the last ship launched there. After 
the company discontinued business and the ship- 
yard was closed, he apprenticed himself to learn 
carriage-making in Taunton, Mass., where he re- 
mained until the summer of 1858. From that time 
until i860 he was employed in Fall River. In the 
latter year he removed to Seekonk, Mass. (now 
East Providence, R. 1.), and established a carriage 
shop, where he was engaged at the breaking out of 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



207 



the Rebellion in 186 1. He at once endeavored to 
enlist, but was debarred on account of physical 
disability. Later in the year, October i, he was 
more successful, and enlisted as private in Troop C, 
First Rhode Island Cavalry. He participated in 
this regiment's varied service and engagements 
while in the Army of the Potomac, and with Sheri- 
dan in the Shenandoah Valley, and was mustered 
out as a Quartermaster-Sergeant at Harrisonburg, 
Va., October 4, 1864, after three years' service, with- 
out having lost a day's duty, and with health fully 
re-established by the outdoor life and arduous ex- 
periences of his campaigns. Upon his return home 
he took up the business he had dropped in 1861 to 




DAVID S. RAY. 

enter the army, but in the fall of 1865 emigrated to 
Ohio and engaged in mercantile pursuits. Return- 
ing to Rhode Island in the fall of 1868, he engaged 
in carriage making in Providence until 1874, when 
he sold out his business and removed to East Provi- 
dence, where for eighteen years he carried on suc- 
cessfully a general hardware business, from which he 
retired in 1892. Mr. Ray has been an active and 
public-spirited citizen of his town and has done 
much toward building up this beautiful and prosper- 
ous suburb of Providence. He was elected State 
Senator in 1888, and was renominated the following 
year, but declined the honor. In 1892 he was 
elected Second Representative to the State Legis- 



lature and has continued in that capacity to the 
present time, serving on several legislative commit- 
tees, and as Chairman of the Committee on Militia 
for the past two years. Mr. Ray has kept up an 
active interest in military matters, and in the State 
Militia, under the old law, served as First Lieutenant 
and Captain of Troop A, Providence Horse Guards. 
Under the new law he was First Lieutenant and 
Commissary five years on the staff of Major George 
N. Bliss, commanding the First Battalion of Cavalry, 
R. I. M. In the Grand Army he joined Prescott 
Post in 1869, and in 1886 was transferred to Bucklin 
Post, of which he was elected its first Commander 
and served three successive terms. He served as 
Aide-de-Camp on the staff of the Department Com- 
mander two years, and on the National Commander- 
in-Chief's staff for a similar period ; was Quarter- 
master-General of the Department of Rhode Island 
two terms ; was elected Senior Vice Department 
Commander in 1891, and at the encampment of 
1892 was unanimously elected to the highest office 
in the Department, that of Department Commander. 
He is also a member of various Masonic bodies, 
including St. John Lodge of Providence, Providence 
Royal Arch Chapter, Calvary Commandery Knights 
Templar, and Palestine Temple Order of the Mystic 
Shrine. Since retiring from active business Mr. Ray 
has devoted those talents which proved so successful 
in his mercantile life to the finances and other in- 
terests of the town in which he resides, having been 
elected Town Treasurer of East Providence in 1874, 
and continuing in that office ever since. He has 
also been for the past three years Vice President of 
the East Providence Business Men's Association. 
He has shown in his public life the same cardinal 
principles of application and integrity, and the same 
executive abiHty,that have characterized his business 
career. He stands a living example of a self-made 
man whose natural modesty forbids his claiming 
for himself those qualities so much sought for by 
others. Mr. Ray was married on his return from 
the army, October 30, 1864, to Miss Mary H., 
daughter of Miles B. Lawson of Providence ; they 
have had six children : Miles Hobart, Arthur Gra- 
ham (deceased), Clara Josephine, Edgar Saunders, 
Myra Amelia and Emma Louise Ray. 



READ, BvRON, merchant and undertaker, An- 
thony, was born in Coventry, R. I., April 7, 1845, 
son of Henry and Phebe (Wait) Read. His father 
and mother were both born in Coventry, in 1801 



2o8 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



and 1804 respectively ; the former died in 1887 and 
the latter in 1895. He is a grandson of Joseph 
and Sabria (Knight) Read and of Sheffield and 
Rebecca (Andrews) Wait, and is a descendant in 
the sixth generation of John Read, who was born in 
Lincolnshire, England, in 1598. His father was a 
farmer, and Byron followed that caUing until he be- 
came of age, his education meanwhile being such as 
could be obtained in the district school. He 
showed at a very early age, however, that he pos- 
sessed both industry and perseverance, and the 
lessons he learned on the farm and in the school 




BYRON READ. 

were not forgotten in later life. On attaining his 
majority, in 1866, he entered the employment of 
his brother, Henry Read, Jr , who was engaged at 
that time in the undertaking, furniture and small- 
hardware business in the village of Anthony. He 
continued in this relation until 1872, at which time 
he bought a half interest in the business, and the 
firm name was changed to H. Read, Jr., & Co. In 
March 1873 his brother died, and Byron at once 
purchased of the heirs their interest in the business, 
retaining the old firm name for seven years, when it 
was changed to that of his own. The increasing 
trade demanding larger quarters and better facilities, 
and the building and land where he was located 
being owned by the heirs of Isaac B. Aylesvvorth, 
who originally began the business, he erected in 



1878 a large and convenient barn and storehouse, 
40 X 80 feet, of his own, upon land he had pre- 
viously purchased of the Coventry Company, just 
opposite the old stand. In 1882 the store was built, 
40 X 100 feet, three stories and basement, with com- 
partments specially adapted to the needs of the 
trade, the whole built under his own active super- 
vision. In these commodious and well-equipped 
quarters, fitted with all modern improvements, Mr. 
Read has continued business with ever increasing 
prosperity to the present time. In 1887, feeling 
that he ought to have, in keeping with his increasing 
business, a new and modern dwelling, he purchased 
the estate of the late Oliver Matteson, and remov- 
ing the old house to another lot to be used for 
tenements, erected on the site the handsome house 
containing all modern improvements where he now 
resides. In politics Mr. Read has always supported 
the principles of the Republican party ; but he has 
declined all public trusts tendered him, and giving 
undivided attention to his business, has by a life of 
quiet industry, perseverance and economy acquired 
a competency, and gained the confidence and esteem 
of all with whom he has been associated. In 
June 1895 ^^ celebrated his twenty-fifth wedding 
anniversary, upon which occasion his wide circle of 
friends was very numerously represented. He is a 
member of Manchester Lodge of Masons and An- 
thony Lodge of Odd Fellows. He was married, in 
June 1870, to Miss JuHa A., only daughter of 
Edward S. and Eleanor (Johnson) Pinckney of 
Coventry Centre, and granddaughter of Jacob and 
Sarah (Fowler) Pinckney of Providence ; they have 
two sons: Herman Byron, born February 17, 1878, 
and Charles Sheldon Read, born November 23, 

1879- 

REED, Robert Gates, M. D., Woonsocket, was 
born in Lonsdale, R. I., November 10, 1852, son of 
Joseph and Ann J. (Howard) Reed. He received 
his early education in the public schools of New 
Bedford, Mass., graduating from the high school of 
that city in 1870, and pursued a college course at 
Dartmouth, from which he graduated in June 1874, 
with the degree of A. B., and from which he re- 
ceived the degree of A. M. in 1893. He subse- 
quently studied one course at Dartmouth Medical 
School, and graduated from the Medical School of 
Boston University in March 1877. Dr. Reed was a 
member of the City Council of New Bedford in 
1880, and since his residence in Woonsocket has 
served on the School Committee of that city since 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



209 



1 89 1, and on the Park Board since 1894, in the 
latter acting as Secretary and Treasurer of the Board. 
He was President of the Rhode Island Homceo- 
pathic Medical Society in 1895, and is a member of 
the Worcester County Medical and the Massachu- 
setts Surgical and Gynecological societies. He is 
Medical Examiner for the Knights of Honor, the 
Royal Society of Good Fellows, the Ancient Order 
United Workmen, and the Mutual Reserve Life In- 




ROBERT G. REED. 

surance Company of New York, also Surgeon for the 
Employers' Liability Company of London, England. 
He is a member of Morning Star Lodge F. & A. M., 
and of Union Royal Arch Chapter of which he is a 
Past High Priest, a member of Woonsocket Com- 
mandery Knights Templar, and of Palestine Temple 
of the Mystic Shrine. He is likewise a member of 
Washington Lodge Knights of Honor, Ballou As- 
sembly Loyal Society of Good Fellows, Hope Lodge 
New England Order of Protection and Blackstone 
Lodge United Order of Workmen, also of the 
Woonsocket Business Men's Association and the 
Rhode Island Universalist Club. In politics he is a 
Republican. Dr. Reed was married, October 18, 
1880, at New Bedford, Mass., to Miss Eudora C. 
Libby ; they have no children. 



ington. His mother was the daughter of Sion Arnold 
of Coventry, R. I., a prosperous farmer, and his 
father was born in Pawtuxet, of English descent. 
His early education was obtained in the public 
schools, which he attended until he was thirteen 
years of age, when he was put to work on a farm, 
where he remained until he was seventeen, when he 
learned the carpenter's trade, which he followed until 
he was twenty-two. At nineteen he went South 
and located in Northern Georgia, at the foot of 
Kenesaw Mountain, in Cobb county. He lived 
there two and a half years, getting back to Rhode 
Island just in time to escape being conscripted into 
the Confederate army. He then worked at the 
manufacture of sash and blinds until 1872, when he 
entered the employ of an undertaking establishment 
at 55 Ocean street, Providence, in which he is still 
engaged, for the last seven years in business for 
himself. He is a member of Eagle Lodge I. O. O. T., 
Harmony Lodge A. F. & A. M., the American 
Legion of Honor and Pettacousett Tribe of Red 




REMINGTON, Henry Adolphus, undertaker, 
was born August 7, 1834, in Pawtuxet, R. I., the son 
of Henry Adolphus and Sally Ann (Arnold) Rem- 



HENRY A. REMINGTON. 

Men. He has had no interest in politics beyond 
voting for the most capable man according to his 
judgment. He was married, February 14, 1858, 
to Miss Mary Cassidy of Providence, and has three 
children : Anna Frances, the wife of Charles Fred- 
erick Jackson ; Charles, in business with his father, 
and Mary Ann, a teacher in the public schools. 



2IO 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



RIPLEY, James Madison, counsellor-at-law. Prov- 
idence, was born in Wrentham, Mass., Septem- 
ber 8, 1834, son of Benjamin W. and Lucy 
(Cook) Ripley. He is a great-grandson of Na- 
thaniel Cook, who served with Paul Jones on the 
Bonhomme Richard, which captured the Serapis. 
He was educated at Smithville Seminary, Lyons' 
and Frieze's Grammar School, and at Brown Univer- 
sity. After leaving college he read law for a time 




JAMES M. RIPLEY. 

with Carpenter & Thurston, Providence, and then 
entered the Albany Law School, where he was 
graduated in 1855. He began the practice of his 
profession in Providence, at 26, now 42, Westmin- 
ster street, where he has since been located. After 
the death of General Carpenter he formed a 
partnership with Benjamin F. Thurston, with whom 
he was long associated under the firm name of 
Thurston & Ripley, and afterwards with Mr. Thurs- 
ton and his brother under the name of Thurston, 
Ripley cS: Co. Mr. Ripley had almost the entire 
management of the law and equity practice of the 
firm, in which he acliieved marked success, speedily 
acquiring a reputation which placed him among the 
ablest lawyers of the state. He attained especial 
distinction in jury cases, and for many years follow- 
ing his admission to the bar was engaged in the 
trial of almost every case of homicide in the state. 



He is now pursuing the practice of his profession 
alone, and in which he is very actively engaged. 
In 1862 he was appointed Judge Advocate of the 
Second Brigade, Rhode Island Militia. Mr. Ripley 
is no less respected for his legal attainments than 
for his genial disposition and social qualities. In 
1856 he was President of the Young Men's Fremont 
Club of Providence, and has since been identified 
in politics with the Republican party. He was 
married, June 30, 1859, to Miss Mary W. Brown, 
daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Brown of Provi- 
dence, and niece of the late Governor James Y. 
Smith ; they have two children : James Herbert 
and Alice Maud Ripley. 



ROCKWELL, Elisha Hutchinson, Factory In- 
spector of the State of Rhode Island, was born in 
Lebanon, Conn., October 16, 1829, son of Jabez 
and Eunice (Bailey) Rockwell, the fifth son in a 
family of children numbering ten sons and three 




E. H. ROCKWELL. 

daughters. He is descended from \\'illiam Rock- 
well, who came from England and settled in Dor- 
chester, Mass., in 1630. His early boyhood was 
spent in farm life of the usually severe kind in those 
days, as when under nine years of age he was 
"bound out" for three years to farm work, and 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



21 1 



having completed that term served another period 
of two years, his compensation being board and 
clothes, and four months' " schooling " in the winter. 
At fifteen he went into the woolen mill of Henry 
Gillette at Bozrahville, Conn., and two years later 
secured a better position in the mill of the Rock- 
ville Manufacturing Company at Rockville, where 
he remained two years. He then decided upon a 
change of occupation and apprenticed himself for 
three years to his brother John in the tombstone 
and monumental business at Norwich, Conn. 
After two years of this service he was offered a 
position as clerk in the steamboat Charles Osgood, 
running between Norwich, New London and New 
York, and he bought the remaining year of his 
apprenticeship for a nominal sum, and started upon 
a career in the steamship business which he has 
since followed with remarkable success. His abil- 
ities and especial adaptation to the business were at 
once demonstrated, and in a year and a half, being 
then but twenty-three years old, the New York, 
New London and Norwich Transportation Company 
tendered him the New York agency of the line, 
which he accepted and held until the company 
retired from business in November 1861. The 
first of January following, the steamers Charles 
Osgood and Osceola were started as an opposition 
line between Norwich, New London and New York, 
and Mr. Rockwell was appointed the New York 
agent. Eighteen months later he was offered and 
accepted the position as agent of the Providence 
and Boston line of the Neptune Steamship Com- 
pany, at their Boston office, where he remained 
until the line was discontinued by the chartering of 
the company's steamers for government service in 
the war of the Rebellion. Mr. Rockwell then 
associated himself as partner in the shipping and 
commission house of Bentley, Smith & Company, 
New York, but at the end of a year retired from 
the firm to again accept the Boston agency of the 
Neptune Steamship Company. In 1867 he trans- 
ferred his services to the Providence & New York 
Steamship Company, as their agent at Providence, 
in which capacity he continued six years. In 1873 
the Merchants & Miners' Transportation Company 
re-established their business by a Hne from Provi- 
dence to Norfolk and Baltimore, and Mr. Rockwell 
became their Managing Agent at Providence, a 
position which he held continuously for twenty-one 
years, and resigned his agency in June 1893. In 
June 1894 he was appointed, by Governor D. 
Russell Brown, Factory Inspector of the State of 



Rhode Island for three years, which position he has 
since held with signal efficiency and ability. Mr. 
Rockwell is a public-spirited citizen, and has been 
active in public affairs, notably as a member of the 
City Government and of the Board of Trade, serving 
on important committees where his work has 
amounted to public benefactions. He is a member 
of Swarts Lodge of Odd Fellows and of the Squan- 
tum. Advance and Elmwood clubs. He was married, 
January 28, 1852, to Miss Martha A., daughter of 
Captain Erastus Geer of Norwich, Conn. ; they 
have three children ; Ella M., now Mrs. Walter J. 
Lewis, of Providence ; Frank W., who for eleven 
years was associated with his father in the steamship 
office in Providence ; and William P. Rockwell, now 
engaged in business in Denver, Colorado. 



SAYLES, Frederic Clark, manufacturer, and 
first Mayor of Pawtucket, was born in Pawtucket, 
July 17, 1835, son of Clark and Mary Ann (Olney) 
Sayles. On both sides he is a descendant, through 
six distinct lines, of the founder of Rhode Island, 
his ancestor, John Sayles, having married a daugh- 
ter of Roger Williams ; and his ancestry is also 
traced back to Governor Joseph Jenks, the founder 
of Pawtucket in 1655. His early education was 
acquired in the public schools of Pawtucket, and 
for several winters, beginning in 1840, in the school? 
of Savannah, Ga., where his father was then en- 
gaged in a wholesale lumber business. Afterward 
he attended the University grammar school in Prov- 
idence, and a course at the Providence Conference 
Seminary in East Greenwich, from which institution 
he graduated in 1853. Upon leaving school he at 
once entered the Moshassuck Bleachery at Sayles- 
ville, R. I., of which his brother William F. was the 
owner and manager, his first duties consisting of 
sweeping the floors, invoicing goods and perform- 
ing general minor services for a compensation of 
five shillings a day. Naturally bright, energetic and 
ambitious, he entered upon this start on active life 
with a determination to equip himself for a success- 
ful career, and for many years following he applied 
himself rigidly and persistently to studying and 
mastering every department of the establishment, 
familiarizing himself with the machinery and pro- 
cesses employed, and becoming acquainted with all 
the intricate methods and multitudinous details of 
the business. In 1863 he was admitted into part- 
nership with his brother, under the firm name of 



212 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



W. F. & F. C. Sayles, since which time the busi- 
ness has increased and expanded, until the Moshas- 
suck Bleachery long since became noted as the 
largest and best equipped establishment of its kind 
in the world. In other respects, as well, it is a 
model industrial institution, for the handsome vil- 
lage of more than three thousand people that has 
grown up around the works is one of the most 
peaceful, contented, thrifty and enterprising manu- 
facturing communities in New England. Mr. Sayles 
is also similarly interested, and to a like extent, in 
the Lorraine Mills, and Glenlyon Dye Works, in 
which he was likewise associated with his brother 
until the latter's death, and is President of the Mosh- 
assuck Valley Railroad. The Lorraine Mills, also 
situated in the Moshassuck Valley, are of great re- 
pute both in this country and abroad, producing by 
the best of skill and machinery a high grade of 
French cassimeres that has challenged comparison 
with the finest products in this line of foreign man- 
ufacture. Mr. Sayles is also a Director in the Slater 
National Bank of Pawtucket and the Merchants' 
National Bank of Providence, a Member of the 
Board of Trustees of the Franklin Savings Bank of 
Pawtucket, and is prominently identified with other 
business and financial corporations and institutions 
of Pawtucket and Providence. He was the first 
signer of the call which resulted in the formation 
of the Pawtucket Business Men's Association, and 
was chosen first President of that body, serving in 
that capacity four successive years. In 1886, when 
Pawtucket became a city, Mr. Sayles was induced 
for the first time to enter public life. Although 
always an ardent Republican, he had hitherto de- 
clined all appeals to become a candidate for politi- 
cal honors, because of the large and constantly 
increasing business interests that demanded his un- 
divided time and attention. But the new city was 
desirous of starting out with a business administra- 
tion of its affairs which should prove a shining ex- 
ample to its successors, and the popular demand for 
Mr. Sayles to become its executive head was so 
urgent that he consented to become a candidate 
and was elected the city's first Mayor. He was re- 
elected the following year, but at the end of his 
second term declined to become again a candidate, 
as his public duties were beginning to make too 
serious encroachments upon his private business. 
His term of service was characterized by the same 
progressive ideas, keen methods and sound princi- 
ples that had marked his private business career, 
and the young city gained from his administration. 



as was expected, a prestige among municipal gov- 
ernments and an impetus in the direction of modern 
progress and development that has proved far- 
reaching and in the highest degree beneficial. Mr. 
Sayles has also been interested in military affairs, 
and at one time served as Major in the Pawtucket 
Light Guard, an organization that in war time sent 
a large number of men into the field. He has 
travelled quite extensively abroad, principally for 
recuperation from the effect of too close and con- 
tinued application to exacting business cares and 
labors, but always in such trips combining health- 
seeking with both business and pleasure. His home 
is on East Avenue, in the suburbs of Pawtucket, 
where he has an elegant residence, Bryn Mawr, 
adorned with many interesting and beautiful works 
of art gathered in his foreign travels, and extensive 
grounds and stables well stocked with some of the 
finest-bred horses and cattle in the countr}'. He 
was married, October 16, 1861, to Miss Deborah 
Cook Wilcox, daughter of Robert and Deborah 
(Cook) Wilcox, of Pawtucket, and whose grand- 
father, Thomas Wilcox, was a soldier of the Revo- 
lution, and one of the daring party of forty-one, led 
by Colonel William Barton, that captured General 
Richard Prescott on the island of Rhode Island, 
July 10, 1778 ; they have had five children : Carrie 
Minerva (Mrs. Frederick William Hollis), Frederic 
Clark, Benjamin Paris (deceased), Robert Wilcox 
and Deborah Wilcox Sayles. 



SHEAHAN, Dennis Harvev, lawyer. Provi- 
dence, was born in Providence, of Irish ancestry. 
When eight years old he was placed at work, be- 
ginning the active duties of life at that early age. 
Fitting himself for admission to the Providence 
high school in the old Front-street evening school, 
he entered the classical department of the former 
in 1 88 1, and graduated in 1885. In the fall of that 
year he entered Brown University, and graduated 
therefrom in 1889, receiving the degree of Bache- 
lor of Arts, and delivering the address to under- 
graduates. His professional studies were completed 
in the law office of Walter B. Vincent, Esq., and at 
the Law School of the University of Virginia. He 
was admitted to the Rhode Island Bar February 20, 
1892, and subsequently to the L'nited States Court. 
Mr. Sheahan has served three years as a member of 
the City Council of Providence from Ward Three, 
and as Clerk of the Rhode Island House of Repre- 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



213 



sentatives for three years. He was also Secretary 
of the Democratic City Committee for two years. 
He was married, June 25, 1894, to Miss Mary A. C. 




DENNIS H. SHEAHAN. 



McDonnell, of Wickford, a teacher in the Wickford 
Academy ; they have one child. 



SHEDD, Joel Herbert, City Engineer of Prov- 
idence, was born in Pepperell, Mass., May 31, 1834, 
son of Joel and Eliza (Edson) Shedd. He was 
educated in the public schools of Massachusetts, in 
the Bridgewater Academy, and by private instructors. 
His professional education began in 1850 with a 
three-years course in civil engineering in the office 
of a prominent civil engineer in Boston. His first 
work as an independent engineer was in railroad 
location and construction in Indiana. He returned 
to Boston in 1856 and opened an office, making a 
specialty of drainage and of hydraulic and sanitary 
engineering. In i860 he was appointed by Gov- 
ernor John A. Andrew a Commissioner for Massa- 
chusetts on the Concord and Sudbury rivers. He 
designed many important waterworks and sewerage 
systems for cities and towns in Massachusetts. In 
1866 he was invited to Providence to make an 
examination in regard to a public water-supply, on 
which work he was engaged for two years. He was 



also employed to design a plan of sewerage for the 
Brook-street district, which was the first step in a 
comprehensive plan for the entire city. Removing 
to Providence in 1869, where he has since resided, 
he began, as Chief Engineer, the construction of the 
waterworks, which were put in partial operation 
November 18, 1771, though construction continued 
until 1877. In 1874 he reported a general sewerage 
plan for the entire city, which is still under con- 
struction, and for a time he was engaged in the 
construction of the waterworks and sewers con- 
jointly. Mr. Shedd was elected a member of the 
American Society of Civil Engineers in 1869, and 
was chairman of its sub-committee on sewerage and 
sanitary engineering at the World's Fair in Philadel- 
phia in 1876. In 1877, the main work of construction 
of the Providence waterworks being completed, he 
resigned his position and resumed general practice, 
opening an office in Providence in addition to the 




J. HERBERT SHEDD. 

office which was still retained in Boston. In 1878 
he spent some time in Europe in the study of 
many important engineering works, especially those 
of irrigation and sewage disposal. He was appointed 
Chairman of the State Harbor Commission in 1876 
and has held that position to the present time. He 
designed an extensive system of harbor improve- 
ment which was executed by the United States gov- 
ernment. Mr. Shedd was chairman of the Rhode 



214 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Island section of the joint commission for deter- 
mining the state boundary between Rhode Island 
and Connecticut, and also chairman of the joint 
commission of those states for establishing encroach- 
ment lines in Pawcatuck River and Little Narra- 
gansett Bay. He was among the founders of the 
Providence Commercial Club and is a member of 
the Board of Trade, also of the Rhode Island His- 
torical Society, the New England Meteorological 
Society, the New England Water Works Associa- 
tion, the Worcester County Society of Civil Engineers 
and various other organizations. He was Commis- 
sioner from Rhode Island to The World's Fair in 
Paris in 1878. He holds the degree of A. M., con- 
ferred by Brown University. Mr. Shedd accepted 
the position of City Engineer of the city of Provi- 
dence on May i, 1890, which he still holds, and is 
engaged in completing the construction of his system 
of sewerage. Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American 
Biography has the following in regard to Mr. Shedd : 
" He has executed many engineering works in the 
cities of the New England and the Middle States, 
as well as for the United States government and the 
states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The 
most important single work of engineering that he 
has designed and executed is the Providence water- 
works, costing ^4,500,000. Every element of these 
works was studied fundamentally, and nothing was 
copied. They have been much referred to, and 
have a European reputation. Mr. Shedd has prob- 
ably done more to improve the quality of American 
hydraulic cements than any other engineer, both by 
the rigidity of his demands and by his careful testing 
of the material. He has been frequently called on 
to testify on engineering matters in court, and he 
has contributed largely to professional journals. 
Among his articles are the sections on ' Rain and 
Drainage ' in French's ' Farm Drainage ' (New York 
1859); 'Essay on Drainage' (Boston 1859); and 
reports on 'Ventilation' (1864) and 'Sewerage' 
(1874-84). The latter include reports to nearly all 
of the principal cities of New England." Mr. Shedd 
was married, in 1856, to Miss Julia A. Clark of New- 
port, Me. ; their children are : Charles Elmer, a 
civil engineer, who died in 1892 ; Edward Whitten, 
a civil engineer, and Mary Isabella Shedd. 



SMITH, Albkri' Watkriman, wool merchant. 
Providence, was born in Johnston, R. I., October 
7, 1855, ^o" of Olney Latham and Maria Jeanette 
(Paine) Smith. His paternal ancestors were resi- 



dents of Smithfield, R. I., as early as the year 1700; 
and on the maternal side he is a descendant of the 
well-known Hoyle family who came from England 
about the middle of the eighteenth century and 
became large landholders in the western part of 
Providence, in the neighborhood of the Hoyle 
Tavern on Broad street. His early education was 
obtained in the public schools, which he left at the 
age of fourteen to acquire at a commercial college 
in Providence the rudiments and methods of gen- 
eral business. After leaving business college he 
entered the employ of the CoUins Line of Steam- 
ships, making several voyages to Liverpool on the 
steamship Baltic, Captain Joseph J. Comstock, until 
about 1859, when he abandoned sea life, and for 




ALBERT W SMITH. 

two years following was engaged in various pursuits. 
In 1 86 1 he entered the cotton and wool business in 
Providence, in which he continued until the close 
of the war, when he took up the wool business 
separately, in which he has ever since been actively 
engaged. In 1873 he bought the Duncan Home- 
stead, an estate comprising some four acres situated 
on the brow of Smith's Hill in Providence, and in 
1876 converted some of the buildings into ware- 
houses for business purposes, where he has since 
carried on an extensive and prosperous business, 
retaining the large and fine old mansion as a resi- 
dence. Mr. Smith is Vice-President of the Fourth 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



215 



National Bank of Providence, an active member of 
the Providence Board of Trade, and prominent in 
the Masonic Lodge and other fraternal societies. 
He is also a member of the Hope, Squantum and 
Athletic clubs of Providence, and of the First Light 
Infantry Veteran Association. In politics he is a 
Republican, but excepting for one term in the City 
Council he has never been in public life. Mr. 
Smith was married, November 22, 1865, to Miss 
Emma C. Merrill of New York city; they have 
one son and two daughters : Arthur Blakeley, Stella 
Merrill and Florence Marston Smith. 



1895, and elected Senator in 1896. In politics he 
is a Republican. Mr. Tallman is a member of 
Eureka Masonic I^odge of Portsmouth, in which he 
has held several of the offices. He was married 
January 17, 1875, to Miss Eleanor Ann Fish; they 
have no children living. 



TILLINGHAST, James, member of the Rhode 
Island bar, was born in Providence, July 22, 1828, 
son of Charles Foster and Lusanna (Richmond) 
Tillinghast. He is a descendant of Pardon Tillin- 



TALLMAN, Benjamin, Member of the Rhode 
Island Senate from Portsmouth, was born in Ports- 
mouth, November 7, 1846, son of Benjamin and 
Sarah Ann (Dennis) Tallman. His paternal an- 
cestors were German, and on the maternal side he 
is of English descent. His education was obtained 
in the common schools of his native town. He has 




B. TALLMAN. 

been master and pilot of sailing vessels six years 
and of steam vessels nineteen years, and for the past 
twenty-five years he has been engaged in the men- 
haden and fresh-fish business, combined with farm- 
ing on a small scale. He was elected as Represen- 
tative to the Rhode Island Legislature from the town 
of Portsmouth in 1893, was re-elected in 1894 and 




JAMES TILLINGHAST. 

ghast, who was contemporary with Roger Williams 
and was the original ancestor of the Tillinghast 
family in the United States. Among his paternal 
ancestry were also Stephen Hopkins, Colonial 
Governor and signer of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and Theodore Foster, one of the first 
Rhode Island Senators in Congress. His ancestors 
on the maternal side, the Richmonds, were among 
the earliest settlers at Seaconnet, now Little Comp- 
ton, R. I. He acquired his early education in the 
grammar and high schools of Providence, and 
received his collegiate training at Brown University, 
from which he graduated in 1849. Adopting the 
law as a profession, he was admitted to the bar by 
the Supreme Court at Providence, September 22, 
1851, and immediately became associated in active 



2l6 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



practice with his father and the late Chief Justice 
Bradley, in their copartnership of Tillinghast & 
Bradley. He remained in this connection until 
Mr. Bradley withdrew in 1858, and afterwards con- 
tinued practice with his father until the death of the 
latter in August 1864. The earliest important case 
which Mr. Tillinghast especially originated was that 
of Taylor & Company vs. Place, in 1856, by which 
he took to the Supreme Court the question of the 
constitutional power of the General Assembly to 
grant new trials — a case which at the time caused 
much discussion throughout the state, and its 
decision established the independence of the courts, 
and put an end to the legislative exercise of judicial 
powers, which had always prevailed under the 
charter, and had to that time been continued under 
the state constitution of 1842. For over forty 
years Mr. TiUinghast has held a distinguished place 
among the most honored leaders of the Providence 
Bar. He is universally known as a lawyer of sterling 
character and high attainments, and as a citizen of 
unimpeachable integrity and of broad and liberal 
views. Although public spirited and deeply inter- 
ested in all matters concerning the public welfare, 
he never has had the inclination to seek nor could 
find the time to hold public office, devoting all of 
his working energies to the practice and perpetual 
study of his profession. His practice has been 
extensive in all branches, in both the state and 
federal courts, with especial attention to equity 
cases and questions of corporation law. Among 
the most important incidents of his professional 
career was that as one of the four associate counsel 
of the A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Company, 
and of its trustee in the litigation which grew out of 
the company's failure in 1873, ^^^ which continued 
during the subsequent fourteen or fifteen years. 
Mr. Tillinghast resides in Providence. He was 
married, May 26, 1857, to Miss Sarah Benson 
Anthony, daughter of Henry and Charlotte Benson 
Anthony; they have had six children: AVilliam 
Richmond, Henry Anthony, Stephen Hopkins, 
Theodore Foster, Charles Foster and Charlotte 
Lusanne Tillinghast. 



His American ancestors were born in Rhode Island 
five generations back, and his great-great-grand- 
father, Thomas Spellman, was an officer in the ship 
Constitution during the Revolutionary war. He 
received his early education in private and public 
schools in Providence, and in 1883, at the age of 
thirteen, was apprenticed to learn the machinist 
trade. In 1887, on receiving an offer from the 
Granger Foundry & Machine Company, he decided 
to learn pattern and model making. After sening 
his apprenticeship in this branch of mechanics he 
worked in various pattern shops throughout the 
city, and was foreman at the works of the House- 
hold Sewing Machine Company for two years, when 
he was tendered and accepted an offer from F. A. 




TURCK, Joseph Abram, manufacturer of pat- 
terns and models, Providence, was born in Camden, 
N. Y., August I, 1870, son of Dr. Joseph H. and 
Mary C (Spellman) Turck, the former a native of 
Syracuse, N. Y., and the latter of Providence, R. I. 



JOSEPH A. TURCK, 

Chase & Company, mill furnishers, to start a factory 
for the manufacture of the Chase Wood- Rim Pulley. 
Accordingly he designed and invented special ma- 
chinery for the manufacture of wood-rim pulleys. 
Having a desire to engage in business for himself, 
in 1893 he started in the manufacture of patterns 
and models in a well-equipped shop at 220 Aborn 
street, in which he has since continued, under the 
name of The Aborn-Street Pattern & Model Works. 
Mr. Turck is a natural mechanic, having been 
awarded two diplomas for models made and exhib- 
ited at the Rhode Island State Fair when twelve 
years of age. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



217 



WEBSTER, George Eldridge, Clerk of the Com- 
mon Pleas Division of the Supreme Court of Prov- 
idence County, was born in Lowell, Mass., July 16, 
1843, -o^ of Clement and Catherine Packer (Lit- 
tlefield) Webster. His early education was acquired 
in the public schools of Providence, and after grad- 
uating from the high school he entered the printing 
office of the Providence Post, of which journal his 
father was the editor from its start until his death in 
1864. Through his associations with the office 
during his boyhood, George had become quite an 
adept at typesetting, and in his regular employment 
following school graduation he famiharized himself 
with all the departments of the newspaper printing 




GEO, E. WEBSTER. 

and publishing business. At the age of twenty-one, 
soon after his father's decease, he secured an en- 
gagement as Private Secretary to Senator William 
Sprague, and went to Washington, where he was 
appointed Clerk to the Senate Committee on Man- 
ufactures, and served in that capacity through the 
regular session of Congress and the special session 
following. From March 1865 until his resignation 
in 187 1 he was connected with the Pension Office, 
occupying successively the positions of Chief Clerk, 
Special Service Agent, Chief of the Branch Office, 
Secret Service Agent, and Pension Agent at Fort 
Gibson, Indian Territory, where he held a special 
commission under President Grant, being sent there 



to investigate the Wright Indian Frauds matter. 
While in Washington he studied law, graduated with 
honors from the Columbian Law College, and was- 
admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia. 
He left Washington in the fall of 187 1 with the pur- 
pose of estabhshing himself in practice in Chicago, 
but three days after his arrival in the Western 
metropolis occurred the great fire which laid the 
greater part of the city in ashes. Returning to 
Providence, he edited for a period the Providence 
Herald, which had succeeded the old Post, and in 
1875 was elected Clerk of the Court of Common 
Pleas of Providence county, afterwards, upon re- 
organization, the Common Pleas Division of the 
Supreme Court, which position he has held unin- 
terruptedly to the present time, his re-elections 
having been unanimous with the exception of a 
single year. Mr. Webster, in 1878, took up his res- 
idence in East Providence, and has since repre- 
sented that town on the commissions which intro- 
duced water service and constructed the Seekonk 
River Bridge and Town Hall, besides serving in 
various other official capacities. He was married, 
February 8, 1884, to Miss Mary Josephine Gale, of 
Providence ; they have one daughter : Grace Gale, 
born in Washington in 1868, now the wife of 
George S. Baker, of Providence. 



WHITE, Reverend Charles J., pastor of the 
Universalist Church of Woonsocket, was born in 
Boston, Mass., May 22, 1836, son of Charles and 
Amanda (Kimball) White. He received his edu- 
cation at Williston Seminary, Easthampton, Mass , 
and Tufts College, Medford, Mass., from which last 
named institution he graduated in 1858. Shortly 
after graduation he became Principal of the Milford 
High School, at Milford, Mass., where he remained 
two j'ears, when he resigned to accept a position as 
cashier in the mercantile house of B. D. Godfrey & 
Co., Boston. In his leisure hours, while engaged 
in commercial business, he studied theology under 
the tuition of Professor Charles H. Leonard, of 
Tufts Divinity School, and subsequently entered the 
ministry of the Universalist Church. He was or- 
dained in 1864, and began his labors in East Bos- 
ton, where, under his ministry, a parish was estab- 
lished and a church edifice erected. In 1870 he 
was led to accept a call to the Universalist pulpit in 
Woonsocket, to fill the vacancy resulting from the 
death of the Reverend John Boyden. He entered 



2IJ 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



upon the duties February i, 1871, and the pastoral 
relations then established remain still unbroken. 
Rev. Mr. White was married, August 7, i860, to 
Miss Harriet Ehzabeth, eldest daughter of Obed 
and Harriet E. Daniels, of Milford, Mass. ; they 



-.S^^. 




CHAS. J. WHITE. 



have had five children : Charles Obed, Hattie May, 
Alphonso Fayette, William Irving (deceased) and 
Paul Maurice White 



WHITTEN, William Wilberforce, founder of 
the W. W. Whitten Cycle Manufacturing Company, 
manufacturers of bicycles and dealers in sporting 
goods. Providence, was born in Waterboro, Me., 
January 12, 1861, son of WiUiam and Abbie (Hodg- 
don) Whitten. On the paternal side he is of English 
descent, as also in one branch of his maternal an- 
cestry, both families having come to this country 
some time in the last century and settled in the 
vicinity at Waterboro; his mother's ancestors on 
one side of the house were Scotch, who came over 
many years ago and married into American families. 
He acquired his early education in the public 
schools of Wakefield, Mass., being a graduate of the 
high school of that place, and now a member of its 
Alumni Association. He prepared for college at 
Coburn Classical Institute, Waterville, Me., and 
entered Colby University, studying there two years, 
and two years at Brown University, from which in- 



stitution he graduated in June 1886. He worked 
his way through college, teaching school and work- 
ing at various employments during vacations. Im- 
mediately following graduation he opened up for 
himself in Providence the business in which he has 
since been engaged. Mr. Whitten had been prom- 
inent in college athletics, had played on the Colby 
ball team and been a member of the Brown boat 
crew. When a student at Brown he conceived the 
idea of his present business, and during his senior 
year laid the plans which after graduation he ma- 
tured and carried into practical effect. Being ath- 
letically inclined and actively interested in college 
sports, his ideas of business turned in this direction, 
and as there was no distinctive sporting-goods house 
in Providence at that time, and no bicycle house of 
any kind, he foresaw the advantages open to such a 
house in a city of that size, the home of a large and 
rapidly growing university and numerous preparatory 
and technical schools. The wisdom of Mr. Whit- 



i." ! 




W. W. WHITTEN. 

ten's views were well borne out by the success of 
the business he established with his associates under 
the name of the W. V^'. Whitten Cycle Manufacturing 
Company. At first only a retail business was carried 
on, but in 1887 a wholesale department was estab- 
lished, and bicycle parts and supplies from England 
were imported and sold to the trade. There were 
few if any bicycle supply houses in the country at 




(^cn/^M^<. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



219 



that time, and many large and prosperous manu- 
facturers of to-day were greatly assisted in the early 
years of their development by the faciHties afforded 
by this enterprising Providence house. In 1893 the 
Whitten Company began the manufacture of bicycles 
and bicycle parts at Elmwood, and this branch of 
their business has been increased and its facilities 
extended year by year. In addition to the goods of 
their own manufacture, the company are large retail 
dealers and jobbers of bicycles, athletic and sport- 
ing goods of every description, besides having the 
agency for some of the standard and leading bicycles 
of the world. Mr. Whitten was the prime mover in 
starting the Rhode Island Wheelmen, the largest 
cycling club in Providence, was first Vice-President 
and has held various minor offices and committee- 
ships since. He has been a member of the League 
of American Wheelmen since 1886 and has been 
Local Consul of the district since 1893. He is a 
member of the National Board of Trade of Cycle 
Manufacturers, and is President of the Providence 
Cycle Dealers' Association, having held that office 
smce 1892. He is also a member of the Rhode 
Island Business Men's Association, of Harmony 
Lodge of Masons, the Providence Athletic Associa- 
tion and the Delta Kappa Epsilon college fraternity. 
In politics he is a Republican. Mr. Whitten resides 
in Cranston, a suburb of Providence, where he built 
a fine residence for himself in 1892. He was mar- 
ried, January 12, 1884, to Miss Adelaide Davis of 
Waterville, Me. ; they have two children : Delora 
Davis and Carl Edmund Whitten. 



WILBOUR, ISA.4C Champlest, of Little Compton, 
President of the Tiverton & Little Compton Mutual 
Fire Insurance Company, was born in Little Comp- 
ton, May 10, 1830, son of Philip Tabor and Eliza 
Penelope (ChampHn) Wilbour. His paternal 
grandfather, Isaac Wilbour, was very prominent in 
Rhode Island official life, having served as Gov- 
ernor of the State, Representative to Congress, and 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court for 
nine years. His mother's ancestor, Jeoffrey 
Champlin, was a man of wealth who early settled in 
Kings Town (now Kingston) and lived on his two- 
thousand-acre farm in fine colonial style. His 
mother's father, Daniel Champlin, inherited the 
homestead, and lived and died there ; he was an as- 
sociate Judge of the Supreme Court for many years. 
Isaac C. Wilbour was educated in the district school 
of his native town, and received his early training 



for active life upon the farm. He was one of the 
founders of the Tiverton & Little Compton Mutual 
Fire Insurance Company, and became its President, 
which office he still holds. He resides in Little 
Compton. In politics he is a Republican. He was 
married, November 5, 1854, to Miss Deborah J. 
Wilbour, who died in 1864, leaving two children: 




I. C, WILBOUR. 

Philip H. Wilbour, and Dora J., who married F. M. 
Patten of Boston. November 17, 1868, he married 
Miss Amelia H. French, by whom he has one son : 
William F. Wilbour. 



WORK, Godfrey, merchant and financier, of 
Providence, was born in Eastford, Conn., April 27, 
1806, and died in Providence November 29, 1895. 
He was the son of Samuel and Patty (Ward) Work. 
The name was originally Wark, but was changed to 
Work by the members of the family soon after 
coming to this country. The Work family origin- 
ated in Scotland, where it has been traced, clearly, 
to the time of Cromwell. They emigrated to 
Ireland, where they were merchants and ship 
owners, and engaged in the East India Trade. 
Thence they emigrated to America and settled in 
Eastford, Conn., where for generations they were 
large land owners and prominent and influential 
men. His maternal grandfather, Joel Ward, settled 



220 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



in Westford, Conn., where he owned extensive 
tracts of land, and was a member of the Legislature 
and a Major in the Army of the Revolution. His 
father, Samuel Work, was a farmer of Eastford, 
Conn. Godfrey attended the town schools, and 
afterward studied with the Rev. Reuben Torrey for 
four years, to prepare for college. It was his first 
intention to study law, but deciding to follow a busi- 
ness career, he gave up his contemplated college 
course, and in 1826, took a clerkship with Samuel 
W, Wheeler, a retail grocer in Providence, with 
whom he served an apprenticeship of four years, as 
was customary at that time. He then entered the 
employ of Gould & Hunt, wholesale grocers, and 
when this partnership was dissolved remained with 
John Gould, who continued the business, until his 
health failed and he returned to his home in East- 
ford, remaining there about a year, then returned 
to Providence and took charge of the business of 
Samuel W. Wheeler, his old employer, who had 
accepted the position of Assistant Postmaster of 
Providence, continuing in this relation about a year, 
when he again returned to Eastford and engaged in 
manufacturing woolen goods. This was in 1832, 
and he carried on the business with success until 
1837, when the great panic and consequent demoral- 
ization of manufacturing interests caused him to 
close up the factory. He then went west to Carlin- 
ville. 111., driving the entire distance, a journey of 
sixty-five days. While residing in the West, the 
death of his wife took place, and, although success- 
ful there, desiring to educate his children in the 
East, he returned to Providence in 1845, ^^^ went 
into the wholesale grocery business. The following 
year he took in as partner Silas B. Whitford, and 



under the firm name of Work & Whitford continued 
until 1852, when the partnership was dissolved 
and he associated with him Frederick P. Shaw of 
New Bedford, under the name of Work, Shaw 
& Company. This association continued about 
a year, when the firm was dissolved, and Mr. 
Work then (1854) took his brother Harrison G. into 
partnership under the name of G. & H. Work, which 
association continued until 1875, when the senior 
partner, and subject of this sketch, retired from the 
business. After his retirement from trade, and a 
trip across the Isthmus, in his seventieth year, Mr. 
Work took up his residence in Edgewood, R. L, and 
invested his money in real estate and mortgages, 
actively attending to the details of his business to 
the day of his death. In all his business career he 
showed himself possessed of exceptional abilities as 
a financier, although he preferred the gradual gains 
of a modest, well-conducted business to the unsafe 
if more rapid methods of speculation. He was a 
great reader and student of history and philosophy, 
and, when not engrossed with the cares of business, 
was a fluent and interesting conversationalist. He 
had travelled extensively in this country, both before 
and after the introduction of railroads ; he went on 
business all through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Penn- 
sylvania and New York, during the "thirties," and 
knew personally many of the prominent business 
men and politicians of those states. He was always 
a Democrat, but was never active in politics. Mr. 
Work was married, January 1836, in Mansfield, 
Conn., to Miss Almira Thomas ; they had two chil- 
dren : William Ellery Work, who died in 1862, and 
Martha N., now the wife of General Z. R. Bliss, 
U. S. Army. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



PART IV. 



ANTHONY, Frederick Henry, member of the 
firm of Anthony Brothers, architects. Providence, 
was born in Providence, November 4, 1846, son of 




F. H. ANTHONY. 

Henry Edwin and Lucy Dudley (McKnight) 
Anthony. He is of old New England ancestry, on 
the paternal side belonging to the well-known 
Anthony family of Rhode Island, and to the Hunt 
family. His mother is a direct descendant of Gover- 
nor Dudley, one of the earliest colonial governors 
of New England, and is also descended from the 
Stuart family. His early education was acquired in 
the public schools of Providence. He graduated at 
the Elm-street grammar school and was entered for 
the high school, but instead of pursuing his school 
course he entered the office of the American Screw 
Company, and shortly after became Paymaster, in 
which capacity he served three years or more, and 



then resigned to accept a position in the American 
Bank, where he gained valuable financial experi- 
ence. He resigned his bank connection to engage 
in commercial pursuits, representing a factory prod- 
uct in Boston, of which he had full charge, up to 
the period of the great Boston iire in 1872. He 
then went to New York, where he remained some 
twenty years, still successfully engaged in commer- 
cial business, and visited regularly all the cities of 
importance in the United States and Canada. 
About 1893 he was invited to join the firm of 
Anthony Brothers, the well-known Providence 
architects, and assume the general management of 
the commercial portion of the business. The firm 
are largely engaged in designing and superintending 
the construction of business buildings, residences 
and public edifices, one of the latter class upon 
which they are now engaged being the new Town 
Hall in Seekonk. Mr. Anthony's position in the 
firm is that of general business manager, mainly 
looking after and conducting the details of the out- 
side business, a work of no small magnitude and 
importance, and one for which he is especially 
qualified by natural adaptation and his long experi- 
ence in commercial life. In politics Mr. Anthony 
is a high-tariff and sound-money Republican, but 
has never sought nor held office. 



ARNOLD, General Olney, banker and manu- 
facturer, Pawtucket, was born in Newton, Mass., 
January 17, 1822, son of Dr. Seth and Belinda 
(Streeter) Arnold. The name of Arnold is one of 
the most ancient known in history. Thomas Arnold, 
born in 1599, in Cheselbourne, Dorset county, Eng- 
land, was a direct descendant of Cadwalader, the 
last King of the Britons, and of Alfred the Great, 
King of England. He came to America in the ship 
Plain Joan in 1635, settled first at Watertown, Mass., 
where he married Phebe, daughter of George and 
Susanna Parkhurst, and came to Providence in 1661, 



222 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



where he bought land and took up his residence ; 
he was for years one of the Town Council, and 
represented the town in the General Assembly. 
His son, Richard Arnold, was Speaker of the House 
of Deputies, and a member of that body for many 
years, was also for many years one of the Council of 
Governor Sir Edmond Andros, and was appointed to 
draw up the address of congratulation to King 
James Second on his peaceable succession to the 
crown. John Arnold, son of Richard, was the first 
President of the Smithfield Town Council, was a 




OLNEY ARNOLD. 

Quaker in religion, and gave land and money to 
build two meeting-houses, one at the northerly and 
the other at the southerly end of his farm, being 
nine miles apart ; one was built at what was called 
Bank Village, and the other near Butterfly Factory. 
The grandson of John Arnold was Nathan, captain 
of a military company from Cumberland, R. I., 
during the war of the Revolution, and who lost his 
life in consequence of exposure after being wounded 
at the battle of Rhode Island, which took place 
August 29, 1778. General Olney Arnold's line of 
descent from Thomas, born in 1599, died 1674, is 
as follows : Richard, son of Thomas, born March 
22, 1642, died April 22, 17 10; John, son of Richard, 
born November i, 1670; Seth, son of John, born 
September 6, 1706, died 1801 ; Nathan, son of Seth, 
born October 18, 1735; Nathan, son of Nathan; 



Seth, son of Nathan, born February 26, 1799, died 
October 31, 1883 ; and Olney, son of Seth, born, as 
above, January 17, 1822. General Arnold is also 
descended in direct line from William Arnold, half 
brother of Thomas, who came from Cheselbourne 
with his wife. Christian Peake, first to Hingham, 
Mass., in 1635, and to Providence in 1636; he was 
one of the original proprietors of Providence Planta- 
tions, his name being second in the deed — this deed 
being from the Indian sachems Canonicus and 
Miantonomi, with Roger Williams. He is also 
descended from Wilham Carpenter, one of the 
thirteen original proprietors of Providence Planta- 
tions ; Richard Waterman, also one of the original 
thirteen; Richard Carder, who represented the 
town in the General Assembly for many years ; 
Thomas Olney, another of the original proprietors, 
for many years one of the Governor's Council, the 
first Town Treasurer, and one of those named on 
the royal charter granted by King Charles Second, 
1663 ; Thomas Angell, who was but eighteen years 
old when he accompanied Roger Williams in his 
landing at Slate Rock in 1636 ; Rev. John Myli s of 
Swaf'sea, Mass., a noted preacher of his day ; Rev. 
Pardon Tillinghast, pastor of the First Baptist 
Church of Providence in 1681 and many years 
after ; Edward Smith of Rehoboth, for many years 
a member of the Governor's Council ; Benjamin 
Smith, of Providence, one of the Governor's 
Council and Deputy to the General Assembly for 
many years ; Edward Freeman, Commissioner and 
Deputy many years ; and John Johnson of Boston, 
Commander of all the Arms and Ammunition, 
Chairman of the Committee on War, and Deputy 
for twenty years. General Arnold is also de- 
scended from many other lines of first-comers, 
who have helped make Rhode Island history. His 
grandparents on the maternal side were Jonathan 
and Patience Mason, both descendants from Samp- 
son Mason of Rehoboth, through the Rev. Pelatiah, 
Charles and Benjamin Mason. Jonathan Mason 
was a farmer of Cumberland, Rhode Island, and a 
member of the Town Council. The subject of this 
sketch was educated in the public schools of Woon- 
socket, Rhode Island, where his early life was spent, 
and at Bushee's Academy in Smithfield. His first 
business training was in mercantile pursuits, but in 
a few years he became cashier of a bank in Woon- 
socket, and in 1853 he removed to Pawtucket, having 
been elected Cashier of the People's Bank of that 
place. From that time he has been prominently 
identified with many of the enterprises that have 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



223 



made the present city of Pawtucket and given it the 
rank and reputation in the business world which it 
now holds. In 1855 Mr. Arnold was tendered the 
position of Cashier of the newly organized Bank of 
Mutual Redemption in Boston, but declined the 
offer, on account of his business interests and asso- 
ciations in Pawtucket. In 1863, when the national 
banking system was established, he organized the 
First National Bank of Pawtucket, the first national 
bank in the town and the sixth in the state, and 
became its Cashier. Two years later the People's 
Bank was merged with it, and in 1875 he was elected 
President, which office he has smce held. Soon 
after coming to Pawtucket he was elected Treas- 
urer of the Providence County Savings Bank, and 
has since continued in that office. Under Mr. Ar- 
nold's management the net earnings of the People's 
Bank and its successor, the First National, have 
averaged more than twelve per cent, yearly for up- 
wards of forty years. Naturally his services have 
been constantly in requisition as financier and man- 
ager of trusts, and in the settlement of estates, and 
he has served and is still serving as treasurer, direc- 
tor and trustee of a great number of corporations, 
societies and institutions. In 1858 he engaged with 
David Ryder, A. H. Littlefield (afterwards Gover- 
nor) and a few others in an attempt to perfect the 
manufacture of haircloth by machinery, in which 
he succeeded after numerous discouragements in 
establishing a large and successful industry. He 
is also Managing Director in the Cumberland Mills 
Company and the Dexter Yarn Company, and is 
variously interested in other manufacturing and 
industrial enterprises. In a pubhc capacity he 
has served as President of the Town Council, 
Town Treasurer, Water Commissioner, Trustee of 
Schools, Trustee of the Public Library, Moderator, 
and in various other town offices. For several 
years following 1846 he was a Representative to 
the General Assembly from the town of Cumber- 
land, of which the village of Woonsocket was then 
a part. After his removal to Pawtucket, then in 
North Providence, he was Representative and sub- 
sequently Senator from the latter town. Politically 
he is a Democrat, of the Jeffersonian type, and he 
has been the candidate of his party for Governor, 
Representative to Congress, United States Senator, 
Presidential Elector and other prominent positions, 
always leading his ticket largely in popular elections. 
He has been Railroad Commissioner, Commissioner 
for the Organization of State Banks, State Prison 
and Jail Commissioner, has served upon numerous 



important state committees and the most prominent 
committees of both branches of the Legislature, and 
has received civil or military commissions from 
nearly every Governor of the state for the last forty 
years. Always taking a deep interest in military 
affairs, Mr. Arnold has served in nearly every 
position from private to Major-General. At the 
breaking out of the Rebellion he was appointed one 
of the aides to Governor Sprague, and did efficient 
work in organizing companies for active service in 
the field. On account of his energy, ability and 
knowledge of military affairs he was retained in the 
state, and was promoted to Major-General of the 
militia. During the war he was Commissioner and 
Superintendent of Drafts in Rhode Island for the 
United States. By the Rhode Island veterans of 
the war. General Arnold is held in the highest 
esteem, and he is an honorary member of the First 
and Second Regiment Veteran Associations, also of 
Slocum Post Grand Army of the Republic. He is 
also a prominent Mason, and a member of many 
charitable associations, historical societies and other 
organizations. He organized the Pawtucket Electric 
Lighting Company, and was one of the leaders in se- 
curing the introduction of municipal waterworks and 
the fire-alarm system. He is prominently identified 
with the Universalist church, has been president of 
its national organization, is trustee of its publishing 
house, treasurer of its state convention, and has been 
treasurer and trustee of the Pawtucket parish. Gen- 
eral Arnold was married, January 23, 1844, to Miss 
Phebe Dudley, of Providence. Mrs. Arnold was born 
in Douglas, Mass., December 17, 1824, and died in 
Pawtucket, March 5, 1895. They had no children. 



BAKER, Benjamin, Superintendent of Schools, 
Newport, was born in the village of Wickford, town 
of North Kingstown, R. I , October 24, 1853, son 
of David Sherman and Mary Cahoone (Waite) 
Baker. His family has resided in the " South 
County" (Washington) since the early settlement 
of that region. General Silas Casey, Stephen A. 
Douglas and General Sherman are said to have 
been distant relations of the family. He acquired 
his early education in the public schools of Wick- 
ford, following which he attended the Providence 
Conference Seminary at East Greenwich, and 
Brown University, from which institution he giadu- 
ated in 1875. He was a teacher in the high school 
at Westerly in 1875-6, studied law in the office of 






224 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Vincent & Carpenter (the late Judge Carpenter of 
the United States District Court) in 1876-7, was 
Principal of the high school in Woonsocket 1877-9, 
was a teacher in the Providence high school from 
1879 to 1890, and in the latter year became Super- 




BENJ. BAKER, 

intendent of Schools in Newport, which position he 
now holds. Mr. Baker is a member of the Ameri- 
can Academy of Political and Social Science, the 
Newport Historical Society, the Natural History So- 
ciety of Newport, and the Newport Business Men's 
Association. He was married, February 10, 1880, 
to Miss Lucy Anna Sisson ; they have two children : 
Harvey Almy, born April 24, 1881, and Charles 
FuUerton Baker, born February 28, 1884. 



BALLOU, Henry Clay, merchant, Providence, 
was born in Cumberland, R. I., August 22, 1844, 
son of Isaac Chauncy and Sarah Aldrich (Cook) 
Ballou. His ancestry is Anglo-Norman, and traces 
back to Guinebond Ballou, a marshal in the army 
of William the Conqueror, who fought at the battle 
of Hastings in the year 1067. Descendants of 
Guinebond Ballou emigrated to America in the 
early period of the country's history, and from one 
of them, Maturin Ballou, a co-proprietor with Roger 
Williams in 1646, the Rhode Island Ballous are 
descended. Mr. Ballou is of the eighth generation 



from his American progenitor, on both sides, his 
mother being a niece of Dr. Ariel and the Rev. 
Adin Ballou. The line of descent is : On the 
paternal side, Maturin, James, Obadiah, Ezekiel, 
Levi, Esq., Flavius J., and Isaac Chauncy Ballou ; 
and on the maternal side, Maturin, James, James, 
Ariel, Deacon Ariel, Abigail and Sarah Aldrich 
Cook. His early education was that of the com- 
mon schools, and his youth was passed on the an- 
cestral farm. After working a few years in a 
grocery store in Woonsocket, he commenced his 
business life in Providence at the age of twenty-one 
with Flint & Company, house furnishers, and con- 
tinued with them twelve years. In 1877 Mr. 
Ballou associated in partnership with Dennison G. 
Markham, under the firm name of Ballou & Mark- 
ham, in the same line of business, at loi-ii 1 Eddy 
street, continuing in this relation until 1891, when 
on account of failing health Mr. Markham sold his 
share in the business to E. L. Johnson. In 1893 
Albert J. Nichols, a trusted salesman who had been 
twelve years in their employ, was admitted to part- 
nership, and the firm was changed to its present 




H. C. BALLOU. 

name of Ballou, Johnson & Nichols, wholesale dealers 
in kitchen furnishing goods and grocers' supplies, 
Mr. Ballou being the buyer and general manager. 
Tiie firm of Ballou & Markham did a large retail 
and jobbing business up to 1890, when a pressure 



Men of progress. 



'■^5 



of business decided them to drop the retail part of 
it, and they have since done a strictly jobbing busi- 
ness. They are today the leading jobbing house in 
their line in Rhode Island, buying direct from the 
manufacturers in large quantities and thus being 
enabled to compete with the largest houses in Bos- 
ton and New York. Mr. Ballou is very methodical 
in all his business relations, and to this especial 
characteristic is due a large measure of his success. 
He is a member of the Universalist Club of Rhode 
Island, and of the Elmwood Club, Providence. In 
politics he is a Republican, but he has never held 
public office, although he has recently been nomi- 
nated for Alderman from the Sixth Ward, and the 
election is soon to take place. Mr. Ballou was 
married, July 4, 1867, to Miss Frances Eveline 
Williams ; they have two sons : Myron Clarence 
and Henry Welcome Ballou. 



BARTON, Nathan Bowen, manufacturing jew- 
eler. Providence, was born in Warren, R. I., 
August 8, 1853, son of Alfred and Ann Ehzabeth 




N. B. BARTON, 

(Bowen) Barton. He is of old New England 
ancestry, and distantly connected with General 
William Barton of Revolutionary fame. He re- 
ceived his early education in the public schools of 
Warren, and prepared for college in the high 



school, but owing to force of circumstances was 
unable to carry out his intention of pursuing a 
collegiate course. In September 1869, at the age 
of sixteen, he entered the employ of Belcher 
Brothers, hardware dealers in Providence, and 
remained with them until July 1879, when he left 
to engage in the manufacturing jewelry business 
with E. C. Ostby, under the firm name of Ostby 
& Barton. This relationship continued until in 
August 1893 a charter was secured from the Leg- 
islature and the business was incorporated under 
the name of the Ostby & Barton Company. Mr. 
Barton was elected Treasurer of the company at its 
formation and has since held that position to the 
present time. The factory employs from two 
hundred to two hundred and fifty hands, with a 
product of nearly a million dollars yearly. The 
head office is at Providence, with branches in New 
York and Chicago. Mr. Barton has been a Director 
in the Manufacturing Jewelers' Board of Trade 
since December 28, 1885, and has been a Director 
in the High Street Bank since 1893. He is a 
member of the Masonic fraternity, also of the West 
Side Club and the Providence Athletic Association. 
He was married, September 2r, 1874, to Miss 
Lillian Fisher ; they have one child, a daughter : 
Annie Florence Barton. 



BATES, William Lincoln, M. D., Providence, 
was born in North Kingstown, R. I., January i, 1855, 
son of Benjamin Sanford and Lucinda (Howland) 
Carr. His father was of New England parentage, 
and was a contractor and builder. His mother was 
a descendant of the Howland family of Rhode 
Island, of noted Quaker stock. On the death of 
his mother, October 7, 186 1, he was adopted by his 
relatives, John and Hannah F'owler Bates, being 
then under seven years of age. His early education 
was acquired in the public schools of Newport, 
supplemented by an academic course at WiUimantic, 
Conn. After taking a special course at Brown Uni- 
versity, he went to Philadelphia to pursue his regular 
medical studies, having determined to adopt the 
medical profession. During the next few years 
he studied at the University of Pennsylvania, the 
Philadelphia Polyclinic, and the Philadelphia Elec- 
tropathic Institute, graduating from the latter in 
December 1891, and receiving the degree of M. E. 
(Master of Electro-therapeutics), and afterwards 
taking a post-graduate course, completing his studies 
in 1892. Having thus made himself familar with 



226 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



the science of electricity in its relation to medicine, 
Dr. Bates returned to Providence and established 
himself as a medical electrician, and within a short 
time his reputation for skill became so well known 
that patients came to him from all parts of New Eng- 




WILLIAM LINCOLN BATES. 

land. Realizing the need of a suitable sanitarium, 
where patients could be afforded the care and com- 
forts they needed and be constantly under his over- 
sight during treatment, Dr. Bates examined all the 
available places in and near Providence, and finally 
secured for his purpose the old Professor Chace 
mansion on Benefit street, which under his direction 
has been remodelled and refitted into an ideal Sani- 
tarium and Medical Home. The house is situated 
in the midst of large grounds, with handsome lawns, 
fruit and flower gardens, and is richly but unostenta- 
tiously furnished, everything about the establishment 
having been devised for pleasing, quiet and soothing 
effect, and for the comfort and permanent benefit 
of visiting invalids and patients. In his position as 
electrical specialist Dr. Bates has gained the confi- 
dence, not only of the general public, but of the 
medical fraternity as well, many patients being sent 
to him by practitioners whose limited knowledge of 
electricity, or lack of facilities, prevent them from 
applying it under satisfactory conditions. He is 
called to work at the Homoeopathic Hospital, 



besides being compelled to make frequent trips out 
of town and to other states, for consultation and 
advice in different cases. Dr. Bates is a member of 
the Rhode Island Historical Society, the Providence 
Franklin Society and the Rhode Island Horticultural 
Society. He has followed in the footsteps of his 
maternal ancestors by accepting the principles of the 
Society of Friends. He was married, July 5, 1895, 
to Miss Martha Boyce of New York, an accom- 
plished lady, well fitted to adorn the position which 
she has chosen to fill ; there are two children : 
Carrie L. and WiUiam P. Bates, by a former marriage. 



BEDLOW, Henry, Mayor of Newport for three 
terms, 1875-6-7, was born in New York city, 
December 21, 182 1, son of Henry and Julia 
(Halsey) Bedlow. The name of Bedlow belongs 
to one of the oldest Knickerbocker families of 
New York, and the American ancestor of the 
subject of this sketch was Isaac Bedlow, son of 
Godfrey Bedlow, physician to William, Prince of 
Orange. Isaac Bedlow came from Leyden, Hol- 




HENRY BEDLOW. 

land, and settled in New Amsterdam, now New 
York, in 1639. He soon became prominently 
identified with the interests of the city, was for 
some years Alderman, and in 1668 he acquired by 
purchase tlie historic Bedlovv's Island, afterward 



■ ^ 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



227 



deeded to the state of New York. One son in 
each generation has since represented the family, 
who have always made New York their residence. 
William Bedlow, grandfather of Mayor Bedlow, was 
appointed by the Government one of the commis- 
sioners to make the survey and establish the 
military school at West Point ; he married Cath- 
erine, sister of Colonel Henry Rutgers, and had one 
son, Henry. The present Henry Bedlow was 
educated under private tutors at Yale University, 
studied law and graduated at Harvard Law School, 
and was admitted to the New York State bar in 
1842. Subsequently he studied medicine in this 
country and France. In early life he became an 
attache of the United States Legation at Naples, 
where he rendered Minister Polk, brother of the 
President, James K. Polk, efficient service in inter- 
course with what at that time was considered the 
most formal court in Europe. Mr. Bedlow was 
also officially attached to the United States Dead 
Sea Expedition, sent out under command of F. W. 
Lynch, whose published report bears complimentary 
testimony to his efficient aid rendered in the ex- 
ploration and survey of the Jordan river and valley 
and the lake of Sodom and Gomorrah. For many 
years Mr. Bedlow has spent with his family the sum- 
mer and autumn season in Newport, of which city his 
varied capabilities and social accomplishments have 
made him a most valued resident. Pie became ac- 
tively concerned in and closely indentified with all 
the city's interests, and in 1875 the citizens elected 
him Mayor, to which office he was twice re-elected. 
His three successive terms marked a period of at 
that time unprecedented advancement for the city 
and of general improvement in its municipal affairs. 
Mr. Bedlow was married, March 2, 1850, to Miss 
Josephine DeWolf Homer, daughter of Fitzhenry 
Homer of Boston ; there are two children : Harriet 
Hall, widow of Lieutenant-Commander Francis 
Morris, and Alice Prescott, wife of William Henry 
Mayer of Middletown, Rhode Island. 



BENTLEY, Benjamin Courtland, contractor 
and builder, Westerly, was born in Westerly, May 2, 
1841, son of Benjamin Wilbur and Mary Potter 
(Maxon) Bentley. His paternal grandparents were 
Benjamin Peckham and Hannah (Wilbur) Bentley, 
and his mother was a daughter of Jonathan and 
Nancy (Potter) Maxon. He was educated in the 
common schools of Westerly, and for many years 
has been a member of the firm of Randolph Bentley 



& Company of that place, contractors and builders, 
and dealers in builders' materials of all kinds. Mr. 
Bentley has been for fourteen years a member of 
the Town Council of Westerly and Chairman of the 
Board for six years, and a member of the Board of 
Trustees of School District Number One for two 
years. He is a member and Past Master of 
Franklin Masonic Lodge, member of Palmer 
Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, member and Past 
Commander of Narragansett Commandery Knights 
Templar, and member of Palestine Temple, Ancient 
Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He 
is also a member and President of the Westerly 




B. COURTLAND BENFLEY. 

Business Men's Association. He was elected a 
member of the Rhode Island House of Representa- 
tives in April 1894, and Senator in April 1895. 
Politically he is a Republican. Mr. Bentley was 
married, February 14, 1867, to Miss Henrietta 
Clark ; they have had five children : Bertha, Benja- 
min Courtland, Jr., Maryetta, Anna Hancox (died 
August 18, 1877) and John Clark Bentley. 



BRICE, Harry Beggs, Superintendent and 
General Agent for Rhode Island of the Prudential 
Insurance Company of America, was born in Wash- 
ington, Warren county, N. J., December 15, 1864, 



228 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



son of Alexander Lawrence and Amelia (Beggs) 
Brice. His father, the Rev. A. L. Brice, was a 
Methodist clergyman in the state of New Jersey for 
forty-five years, located in Newark sixteen years, 
Presiding Elder twenty-four years, a member of the 
Newark Conference and of the New York Mission- 
ary Board of the Methodist Episcopal church ; he 
died in 1892, at the age of about seventy years. 
His grandfather, Alele Reise Brice, was a French- 
man, a paper manufacturer, and at one time asso- 
ciated in business with Cyrus W. Field. His 
maternal grandfather, Hugh Beggs, came to this 
country from Wick, Scotland, and settled in Pater- 




HARRY B, BRICE. 

son, N. J., where he became proprietor of the 
Union Machine Works of that city. The subject of 
this sketch was educated in the public schools of 
his native city, graduating from the grammar school 
and attending the high school until the age of six- 
teen, when he was apprenticed to the printing 
trade. After learning his trade, in 1880 he went 
into the printing business for himself, continuing 
until 1887, when he took up the insurance busi- 
ness, in which he has since been engaged. In 
1895 the Prudential Insurance Company of 
America, whose home office was in Newark, became 
desirous of extending their business in the Rhode 
Island field, which they had only entered in June of 
the previous year. A capable man was needed to 



take charge of the Providence office of the com- 
pany, and Mr. Brice was appointed to the position, 
under the official title of Superintendent and 
General Agent of the Prudential Insurance Com- 
pany of America for Providence. He came to 
Rhode Island and assumed charge of his present 
office April 29, 1895, since which time the com- 
pany, which has attracted the attention and gained 
the confidence of the people by its liberal and 
sound methods, has largely increased its business in 
the state. The company which Mr. Brice repre- 
sents ranks as one of the great financial institutions 
of the world, and in the twenty years of its exis- 
tence has built up I15, 780,000 of assets, $12,500,- 
000 of annual income and $3,300,000 of surplus, has 
paid to policy holders over $22,000,000, and has 
now, at risk, insurance amounting to more than 
three hundred millions of dollars Although its 
principal field has been outside of New England 
until within a comparatively recent period, it is 
already doing a very large business in life and 
endowment policies in this section. Mr. Brice has 
been active in politics and public life in his native 
state, and served in 1894 as Document Clerk of 
the House of Assembly, and as Secretary of the 
Committee on Municipal Corporations. His pro- 
clivities are Republican. He is a member of the 
West Side Club of Newark, also of the Odd Fel- 
lows, the Ancient Order United Workmen, and the 
Typographical Union. On his departure from 
Newark he was given a farewell dinner by his 
friends, which was attended by a large number of 
public officials and prominent men of the city. 
Mr. Brice was married. May 9, 1889, to Miss Zilla 
Alverta, daughter of Lieutenant Lorrin Bundy, of 
the Maine Cavalry ; they have two children : 
Lorrin Smylie, aged six, and Harry Danforth Brice, 
aged four years. 



CANFIELD, Herman, A. M., M, D., of the 
Hopeworth Sanitarium, Bristol, was born in Medina, 
Ohio, April 17, 1853, son of Herman and S. A. 
Martha (Treat) Canfield. The Canfields came 
from France to England in 1350, and settled in 
Yorkshire. From there they came to Milford, 
Connecticut, about 1640. Dr. Canfield's great 
grandfather, Colonel Samuel Canfield, serv'ed on 
Washington's staff in the Revolutionary War. His 
grandfather, Herman Canfield, removed to the 
Western Reserve early in the present century, and 
founded the town of Canfield, Ohio. His father. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



229 



Herman Canfield, was a lawyer and located in 
Medina, where he held in succession all the town 
and county offices, and when serving as Mayor was 
elected State Representative, and later was a State 
Senator. At the fall of Sumter he was appointed 
Major, and soon after Lieutenant-Colonel, of the 
Seventy-second Ohio, and was in command of his 
regiment when shot and killed at the battle of Shiloh 
or Pittsburg Landing. Dr. Canfield's mother's fam- 
ily, the Treats, came to East Hartford, Connecticut, 
from England. His great-grandfather Treat was 
Governor of Connecticut and a member of Wash- 
ington's staff during the Revolution ; his grand- 
father Treat removed to Ohio about 1840, and is 
now living in Denver, Colorado, at the age of 
ninety-nine years. The Canfields were all profes- 
sional men, the Treats always in business. The 
father of our subject, when Senator, introduced a 
bill establishing the State Idiot Asylum of Ohio, 
and was President of that institution at the time of 
his death ; he was a strong Abolitionist, and was the 
head in his part of the state of the underground 
railway between the slave states and Canada. 
After his death his widow went South to care for 
sick and wounded soldiers, and at the close of the 
war established the Canfield Colored Orphan 
Asylum at Memphis, Tennessee. Afterwards she 
had charge of the Division of Orphan Asylums, In- 
dustrial Schools and Charities in the Bureau of 
Education at Washington. She died at Hope- 
worth in 1890, from the effects of exposure in her 
work for the soldiers during the war. During the 
war the subject of this sketch spent most of his 
time at the front with his mother in caring for sol- 
diers, so that he grew up in hospitals, and became 
personally acquainted with Grant, Sherman and 
other prominent generals of the war in the West. 
He obtained his early education in private schools, 
completed his preparation for college in the grammar 
school at Gambler, Ohio, and graduated in 1874, 
at Racine College, Racine, Wisconsin, from which 
institution he received the degree of A. M. in 1877. 
In the fall of 1874 he entered the College of 
Physicians and Surgeons in New York, received his 
degree from the University of New York, Medical 
Department, in 1876, was admitted, after a severe 
competitive examination, as Junior Assistant Fourth 
Medical Division on the staff of Bellevue Hospital 
in New York city, and in 1878 went abroad and 
studied at Wurtzburgh, Berlin, under Virchow, nnd 
also in London. While in Bellevue Hospital he was 
appointed to the care of a practice in Cold Spring, 



New York, and latter was appointed to collect and 
care for an exhibit to represent Medical Education, 
by request of the United States Commissioner of 
Education, at the Centennial Exposition in Phila- 
delphia. He also served for a time at the head of 
the Bellevue Emergency Obstetrical Hospital. In 
the spring of 1879 he located in Cleveland, Ohio; 
but wishing to open a sanitarium, he removed with 
his wife and child, in the same year, to Bristol, 
Rhode Island. Dr. Canfield is emphatically a self- 
made man. He began his business life in Bristol 
with twelve dollars in his pocket and no other finan- 
cial resources. After practicing two years in order 





4^ ^H 




L^j^^^^l 


JM 


w 



HERMAN CANFIELD. 

to get something to start a sanitarium upon, he 
rented the General Burnside estate and opened his 
institution with one room. In eighteen months the 
business had outgrown its quarters, and Dr. Can- 
field bought his present estate. The house then 
contained seven rooms, and has since been extended 
to forty-five rooms, with accommodation for thirty 
patients ; other buildings have from time to time 
been added, so that it is now one of the best and most 
complete sanitariums in the East. In 1885 he took 
his brother. Dr. William E. Canfield, into partner- 
ship, and the firm name has since been Canfield & 
Canfield. Dr. Canfield has spent four or five winters 
abroad, and is now establishing a sanitarium at the 
Hot Springs in Jamaica, British West Indies, and 



2 30 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



another at Cartago, Costa Rica. His labors are en- 
tirely devoted to his specialty of nervous diseases, 
and besides his sanitarium work much of his time 
is spent in consultation with physicians all over 
New England. Aside from the business part of 
Hopeworth, it is a rule of the Sanitarium to care 
always for two deserving patients who are unable to 
meet the regular charges. The institution is rapidly 
growing, and is every year obliged to extend its 
accommodations. The record of Dr. Canfield's 
professional career commences with his services in 
the United States Sanitary Commission and United 
States Christian Commission during the war. He 
was House Physician at Bellevue Hospital, New 
York, in 1878; House Physician of Bellevue 
Emergency Obstetrical Hospital in 1879; and has 
been Physician in charge of Hopeworth Sanitarium 
since 1883. He is a member of the Rhode Island 
Medical Society, Providence Medical Association 
the Society of Internes of Bellevue Hospital, the 
Military Order of Loyal Legion and the Providence 
Athletic Club. He has always been a Republican, 
but while actively interested in politics has never 
sought nor held public office. Dr. Canfield was 
married, April 13, 1878, to Ella M. Kendall of Wind- 
sor Locks, Connecticut; they have two children: 
Herman and Roderick Canfield. 



COTTON, Joseph Potter, civil engineer, New- 
port, was born in Bovvdoin, Me., May 8, 1837, son 
of Isaac H. and Rhoda Lamont (Potter) Cotton. 
His paternal ancestors were engaged in farming and 
ship-building. His great-grandfather Lamont was a 
soldier in the Revolution and died in the service. 
He acquired his early education in the public schools 
and academies of his native district, working as a 
boy on the farm, and later teaching in district 
schools in Maine, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. 
In 1857 he taught winter school in Topsham, Me., 
and taught in the same town the following year. 
In 1859-60 he taught school in Phillipsburg, N. J., 
and in 186 1-2-3 ^^ Easton, Pa. In 1862 he served 
as Orderly Sergeant in Captain Finley's Company, 
Colonel Clemens' regiment militia, of Easton, Pa. 
In 1863 he raised and commanded Company C, 
Thirty-eighth Regiment Pennsylvania Militia, mus- 
tered into the United States service. In 1864-5 '""^ 
was Assistant Superintendent of the House of 
Refuge in Philadelphia. In 1866 Mr. Cotton com- 
menced work in engineering, being employed from 



March to September as rodman and leveler on the 
Lake Superior & Lake St. Croix Railroad, in ^Vis- 
consin. Following this engagement he was em- 
ployed under General G. K. Warren of the United 
States Engineers on surveys of western rivers, in 
Mississippi, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Ohio, until 
1 87 1. In that year he came to Newport and took 
charge of the construction of the breakwater at 
Block Island. He continued in the service of the 
Government until 1883, being employed on various 
river and harbor and fortification works. In 1882- 
3-4 he served as Commissioner and Engineer of the 
Seekonk River bridge at Providence. In associa- 




JOSEPH P. COTTON. 

tion with E. S. Cheesbrough he prepared a plan for 
sewering Newport, which plan, slightly modified, 
was adopted and the sewers built. Since 1883 he 
has been engaged in the private practice of engi- 
neering, and since 1 890 has served as City Engineer 
of Newport. Mr. Cotton was a member of the 
School Committee from 1876 to 1883, and was 
Overseer of the Poor three years. He has been a 
member of the American Society of Civil Engineers 
since 1876, and of the Newport Business Men's As- 
sociation since its organization, is President of the 
Fish and Game Association, and has been President 
of the Association for Saving and Building since it 
was organized in 1888. He is also a member of G. 
K. ^^'arren Grand Army Post and of the Newport 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



231 



Charity Organization Society. In politics he is a 
RepubHcan. Mr. Cotton was married, March 26, 
1867, to Miss Isabella Cole ; they have two children : 
Frederic J. and Joseph P. Cotton, Jr. 



EVERSON, Edward W., of Providence, con- 
tractor for public works, was born in Manlius, 
Onondaga County, N. Y., July 14, 1847, son of 
William and Adaline D. (DeLamater) Everson. 
He is of Dutch ancestry on the paternal side, and 
of French Huguenot on the mother's, and his pro- 




EDWARD W. EVERSON. 

genitors settled in New York city and in the 
Mohawk Valley before the Revolution. He was 
born and bred on a farm, was educated in the 
common schools, and from the age of nineteen has 
been actively employed on public works of varied 
character. Since 1873 he has been in business for 
himself, as a general contractor, and has had an 
extensive experience in New York, Ohio, Illinois, 
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine 
and Canada. Mr. Everson has executed large 
sewer work in Akron and Cleveland, Ohio ; Buffalo 
and Yonkers, N. Y. ; Providence, R. I., and Bos- 
ton, Mass. He has the best known appliances 
for such work, which he performs by modern 
methods in part exclusively his own, and with 



thoroughness and despatch. At present he is at 
work on a contract for building Section Two of 
the Boston Rapid Transit Subway, through Boston 
Common. He has lately completed a heavy con- 
tract at Pawtucket, R. I., for building a dam 
and power-station for the Bridge Mill Power 
Company, to which the builder may justly point 
with pride as an enduring example of his work. In 
1894 Mr. Everson organized the Narragansett 
Improvement Company, of Providence, of which he 
is the Secretary, Treasurer and General Manager, 
to lay sheet-asphalt pavements in New England, 
with principal office at 17 Custom House street. 
Providence. The company have paved Broadway, 
Pine street, Washington Row and the Red Bridge in 
Providence with Trinidad Lake sheet-asphalt, on a 
six-inch base of cement-concrete, and the people of 
the city are now beginning to appreciate the good 
qualities and superior merits of a noiseless, smooth 
and impervious pavement, while wheelmen are en- 
thusiastic in its praise. The strongest surety 
companies write guarantees for long terms of years 
on this form of pavement, which is rapidly succeed- 
ing all other kinds wherever it is once laid and the 
people experience its advantages, not the least 
among which is its cheapness, as it is claimed that 
it can be laid and kept in good order for less money 
than any other pavement. At all events it has never 
anywhere been replaced by any other pavement, and 
is rapidly superseding all others. To Mr. Everson 
belongs the chief credit for the introduction of this 
valuable modern pavement into Providence and 
neighboring towns. In politics Mr. Everson is a 
Republican. He was married, October 21, 1875, to 
Henrietta Cady Liddle, of Duanesburgh, N. Y. 



FARRELL, John T., M. D., Providence, was 
born in Webster, Mass , September 11, 1858, son 
of Thomas and Catherine (Thompson) Farrell. 
His parents were natives of Ireland, and came to 
this country when children ; they are still living. 
His early education was acquired in the public 
schools of his native town, and after leaving the 
high school he entered a large drygoods store, where 
he rose in course of time from the position of store- 
boy to that of confidential clerk. His school-days 
were marked by evidences of ambition, energy and 
executive ability, and during summer vacations he 
published a small local paper, which yielded him 
some financial returns. An especial interest in 



232 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



physiological study awakened in his high-school 
course developing as he reached manhood, he re- 
linquished promising mercantile opportunities to 
enter Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. 
There after a three-years course he graduated in 
April 1886, and a month later came to Providence 
and opened an ofiSce at 19 13 Westminster street, 
where he has remained, and by earnest application 
and an early-gained reputation for professional skill 
has established a large practice. Dr. Farrell is a 
member of the American, Rhode Island and Provi- 
dence medical associations, and served as delegate 
from the Rhode Island Society to the meeting of 



is a physician in Maiden, Mass., and Thomas Far- 
rell is a lawyer in Providence Dr. John T. Farrell 
was married, July 14, 1892, to Miss Mary A. Quinn 
of Providence; she died June 21, 1894. 




J. T, FARRELL, 

the American Association in Atlanta, Ga. He is 
also a member of the Providence Press Club and 
Ancient Order United Workmen, and Medical Di- 
rector of the Knights of Columbus, Good Fellows, 
Foresters and Catholic Benevolent Legion. He is 
also Medical Examiner for the Massachusetts Mutual 
and other insurance companies, and has served as 
Town Physician of the town of Johnston. In 
national politics he is a Democrat of the free- trade 
and sound money order, but in local affairs he is in- 
dependent. Dr. Farrell was the eldest of five sons; 
and of his four brothers. Dr. Henry W. Farrell is 
associated with him in practice, the Rev. James J. 
Farrell is located in Everett, Mass., Dr. Geo. L. Farrell 



FULLER, Myron Hollev, General Manager 
of the Providence Coal Company, was born in 
Hampton, Windham county. Conn., September 21, 
1844, son of Elisha S. and Esther E. (Chester) 
Fuller. His ancestors on both sides settled in 
Windham county at a very early period, and were 
noted for being long-lived people, most of them 
reaching the nineties and many exceeding that age 
by from two to six years ; his mother died in 1895, 
aged eighty-five, and his father is now living at 
eighty-seven. His education was that of the 
country school, never having had any other except 
that which he has "picked up " himself. He 
worked on the farm until the age of eighteen, and 
in September 1862 came to Providence, where he 
secured a situation in a boot and shoe store as clerk. 
He worked a year in the store, when the proprietor 
sold out, and after remaining with the new one two 
months he hired with Bangs AVilliams as entry clerk. 
After a little over a year in this position he trans- 
ferred his services to the business in which he has 
ever since been engaged. This was in 1865, and 
the business was conducted by Henry C. Clarke, for 
many years one of the prominent merchants of Provi- 
dence. In 1870 Mr. Clarke sold out to Tucker, 
Swan & Company, who in 1878 were succeeded 
by the firm of Tucker & Little, and in 1880 the 
growth and transfers of interests in the business, 
which had meanwhile grown to extensive propor- 
tions, resulted in the organization of the Providence 
Coal Company, of which Mr. Fuller was made Gen- 
eral Manager in 1881. Mr. Fuller has therefore 
been identified with the business over thirty-one 
years, through all its successive changes, first as 
book-keeper, later in charge of the financial affairs, 
and finally as General Manager of what is now one 
of the largest coal distributing institutions of Rhode 
Island. Notwithstanding the magnitude of the 
business over which he presides, Mr. Fuller finds 
time to devote to other business interests, as well 
as to political affairs and social life. Since 1880 he 
has been connected with the firm of Royce, Allen 
& Company, manufacturers of jewelry novelties, 
and he is Treasurer of the Nelson's Improved Seam 
less Filled Ware Company, an enterprise started 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



233 



early in 1896. In 1890 he was elected Alderman 
from Ward Six, and served successively in 1891- 
2-3-4, and was again elected in 1896. He is a 
Thirty Second Degree Mason, and a member of 
What Cheer Lodge and St. John's Commandery 
Knights Templar, also of Eagle Lodge of Odd 
Fellows, and the Athletic, Press, Union and 
Country clubs. He has also served as Commissary 
of the United Train of Artillery for the last two 
years. In politics he is a Republican. Mr. Fuller 
was married. May 20, 1869, to Miss Sarah A. 
Martin, born in Camden, Alabama, a daughter of 
William P. Martin of Providence ; they have one 
child : Edward Martin Fuller. 



GARDINER, Aldridge Bissell, retired manu- 
facturer. Providence, was born in Wickford, R. I., 
May 25, 1826, son of Beriah and Elizabeth (Ham- 
mond) Gardiner, being next to the youngest of 
eighteen children. His American ancestors for four 
generations were named Nicholas Gardiner, and 
the family originally came from Poole, England. 
He receivi.d his early education in the common 
schools and at Wickford Academy, and at the age 
of thirteen joined his elder brothers in following 
the sea. After a couple of years of seafaring life 
he came to Providence and apprenticed himself 
with Hunt & Owen, manufacturing jewelers, and 
remained with them nine years. In 1866 he 
entered into copartnership with Josiah W. Richard- 
son, in the jewelry business, under the firm name of 
J. W. Richardson & Company. This copartnership 
continued until the death of Mr. Richardson in 
1 88 1, when his son, George H. Richardson, suc- 
ceeded him. In 1893 Mr. Gardiner retired from 
the business, disposing of his interest to Mr. 
Richardson and two of the clerks in the office. 
The business is still carried on under the old 
firm name in Providence, with offices in New York, 
and has been very successful. For a long time 
they were the only concern in New England making 
a specialty of society emblems. Mr. Gardiner was 
for ten years an active member of the First Light 
Infantry, and since then a member of the Veteran 
Association up to the present time. He is promi- 
nent in Masonry, being a member of St. John's 
Lodge and the oldest Mason in the lodge, also 
a member of Providence Royal Arch Chapter, Provi- 
dence Council Royal and Select Masters, St. John's 
Commandery of Knights Templar, Rhode Island 
Consistory Thirty-second Degree Scottish Rite, 



and Palestine Temple Ancient Arabic Order of No- 
bles of the Mystic Shrine. He has the honor of 
being the first man to be made a Knight of Pythias 
in Rhode Island. He is also a member of the West 
Side, Pomham and Athletic clubs of Providence. 
In politics he is a Republican. Mr. Gardiner was 




A. B. GARDINER. 

married, June 14, 1854, to Miss Agnes D. Jackson 
of Rockaway, Morris county, New Jersey; they 
have had three children : Annie R., now Mrs. 
Frank T. Pearce, Laura C, now Mrs C. M. Lee, 
and John J. Gardiner, who died in his seventeenth 
year. 

GARDINER, Jeremiah Briggs, Superintendent 
of the Stonington Division of the New York, New 
Haven &i Hartford Railroad, was born in South 
Kingstown, R. I., July 15, 1831, son of Henry and 
Mahala (Briggs) Gardiner. He obtained his early 
education in the common schools of his native 
country district, until the age of fourteen, when he 
came to Providence. In 1849, then a lad, he was 
induced by Governor William Sprague, Senior, his 
friend and adviser, to go on the ship William 
Sprague and learn navigation, with the purpose of 
fitting himself for a ship-master. He was absent at 
sea two years, making a voyage around the world. 
In the fall of 1850, the ship being then at Manila, 
the young man of twenty was appointed master for 



234 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



the remainder of the voyage, and brought the vessel 
home to New York, arriving in February of 185 1. 
But sea life was not in accordance with his health 
or inclinations, and he decided to abandon it for 
transportation business on shore. Soon after the 
close of his first and only sea voyage, he was ap- 
pointed to a position in one of the subordinate 
departments of the New York, Providence & Boston 
Railroad, where the fidelity and intelligence with 
which he served the interests of the company and 
the public secured him rapid promotion. Advanc- 
ing from one position to another toward the higher 
grades, he was in 1869 appointed Superintendent of 




J. B, GARDINER. 

the Neptune Line of steamers running between 
Providence and New York. After four years or 
more of efficient service in this office he was 
chosen, in 1873, Assistant Superintendent of the 
New York, Providence & Boston Railroad, and five 
years later was elevated to the position of Superin- 
tendent. The Providence & Worcester Railroad 
having been leased to the New York, Providence & 
Boston Company, this road, thereafter known as the 
Worcester Division, was in 1889 also placed in 
charge of Mr. Gardiner, and so remained until 1892, 
when the entire property was leased by the New 
York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company. 
The New York, Providence & Boston Railroad be- 



came known as the Stonington Division of the New 
York, New Haven & Hartford, and Mr. Gardiner 
remains Superintendent of that division. In 1873, 
Mr. Gardiner was appointed Agent of the Stoning- 
ton Steamship Line, which position he held for a 
number of years in connection with his railroad duties. 
In addition to the foregoing executive offices, he 
was in 1888 made Superintendent of the Newport & 
Wickford Railroad and Steamboat Company, which 
position he held until 1894. Mr. Gardiner is a man 
of genial nature and strong character, and is of the 
comparatively few that seem to find the station in 
life best fitted to their tastes and talents. He has 
mastered the details of his business from the 
beginning, and having rare executive ability, and 
thoroughly understanding human nature, he has 
acquired or originally possessed the happy faculty 
of handling men judicially, or in other words, for 
the best interests of the great road and the greater 
traveling public whom he ahke serves. He was 
married, April 11, 1852, to Miss Eliza Antoinette, 
daughter of Tolland and Rhoda Ann Benson ; they 
had five children, of whom only two are now living : 
Antoinette Augusta and Granville S. A. Gardiner. 
Mr. Gardiner was married a second time, April 23, 
1896, to Miss Cecilia Augusta Potter. 



GOFF, Lyman Bullock, manufacturer, Pawtucket, 
was born in Rehoboth, Mass., October 19, 1841, 
son of Darius and Harriet (Lee) Goff. His an- 
cestors were among the earliest settlers of his 
native town, and held prominent ^nd respected 
positions in the community. His parents moving 
to Pawtucket in 1847, he received his early educa- 
tion in the grammar and high schools of that city, 
after which he entered Brown University and 
graduated in the class of 1862. He commenced his 
active business career in connection with the firm 
of D. Goff & Son, manufacturers of worsted and 
cotton goods, and was admitted into the firm in 
1872. In 1880 he was made Treasurer of the 
Union Wadding Company, of which his father, 
Darius Goff, was President, and on the death of the 
latter became its President, which office he now 
holds. He is also President of the Excelsior 
Building Company of New York, and is largely in- 
terested in many of the manufacturing industries of 
his state as well as in mills in the South and Canada. 
He is a Director in several banks in Providence 
and Pawtucket, is Vice-President of the Pawtucket 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



235 



Street Railway, in which, as well as in other electric 
railways and electric companies of his state, he has 
large holdings. Mr. Goff has been three times 
elected President of the Business Men's Association 
of Pawtucket, and has taken a prominent part and 




and was admitted to the bar December 12, 1865. 
Entering at once upon practice in Providence, Mr. 
Gorman was very soon recognized as a leader in his 
profession, and his marked and versatile abilities led 
to his being early called into public life. He was 
elected a member of the School Committee in 1S67 
and served until 1872, was chosen Common Council- 
man in 1874, and Alderman in 1879-80-81 and 
1890. In 1870 he was elected to the House of 
Representatives, and again in 1885 and 1887, 
serving in the latter year as Speaker of the House. 
In 1895 he was appointed United States Attorney 
for the District of Rhode Island, which office he 
fills with signal efficiency and ability. In 1896 the 
honorary degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred 
upon him by Georgetown University. Mr. Gorman 
was President of the Brownson Lyceum, and is a 
member of the Athletic Association, the Country 
Club and the Franklin Lyceum of Providence, also 
of the Sons of the American Revolution. He is 
interested in military affairs, and has served as Adju- 
tant of the Rhode Island National Guards. In pol- 
itics he is a Democrat, and has been the Democratic 



LYMAN B- GOFF. 

a warm interest in the improvement of his city. A 
Republican in politics, he has always declined 
office. He is a member of the Athletic and Hope 
clubs of Providence, and of the Union League and 
Athletic clubs of New York. He was married, 
December 14, 1864, to Miss Almira Thornton; 
they have two children : Lyman T. and Elizabeth 
Lee Goff. 



GORMAN, Charles Edmund, United States 
Attorney for the District of Rhode Island, was born 
in Boston, Mass., July 26, 1844, son of Charles and 
Sarah J. (Woodbury) Gorman. On the maternal 
side he is descended from John Woodbury, one of 
the original settlers of Cape Ann, Mass., in 1622. 
His father was a native of Ireland. His early edu- 
cation was acquired in the public schools, until the 
age of eleven. He came to Providence in 1848, 
and when eight years old commenced active life as 
a newsboy, continuing in that occupation until 
about sixteen, when he engaged in mercantile pur- 
suits. He studied law with Ex-Chief Justice Greene, 





CHARLES E. GORMAN. 

candidate for Secretary of State, Attorney General, 
and Mayor. From his entrance into public life he 
was an earnest agitator and worker for the removal 
of the real-estate requirement imposed upon nat- 
uralized citizens as a requisite of the suffrage in 



236 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Rhode Island. After twenty-five years of agitation, 
during which time Mr. Gorman devoted persistent 
labors to the cause, the reform was accomplished 
by an amendment to the constitution. Upon its 
final adoption he was presented by citizens of the 
state with a silver tea service, "in recognition of 
twenty-five years' service in behalf of equal rights." 
Mr. Gorman is a prominent and eloquent speaker in 
the cause of Democracy, and has participated on 
the platform and stump in every Presidential cam- 
paign since 1864. He was married, July 8, 1874, 
to Miss Josephine C. Dietrich ; they have had five 
children : Charles Woodbury, Edward J., Joseph, 
Clara J. and Clement Dietrich Gorman, of whom 
only the first and last named are now living. 



GREENE, Benjamin, M. D., Portsmouth, was 
born in Exeter, R. I., October 30, 1833, son of 
Hon. Isaac and Eliza (Kenyon) Greene. He is 
descended from the well-known Greene family of 
which Gen. Nathaniel Greene was a distinguished 




BENJ. GREENE. 

representative. His father was a farmer and a 
prominent man of his district, for many years a 
Representative in the General Assembly. His 
grandfather, Hon. Benjamin Greene of Coventry, 
was a Judge of one of the courts and held various 



and prominent public positions. Dr. Greene 
passed his early life at the family homestead, where 
he worked on the farm. He received however a 
good school and academic education, and in 1856 
commenced the study of medicine with his uncle, 
Dr. Job Kenyon of Anthony, R. I. In 1857 he 
entered the University Medical College of the City 
of New York, and graduating in 1859, established 
himself in practice in Portsmouth, R. I., where for 
some years he was the only physician and surgeon 
in the place. In his extensive practice now cov- 
ering many years. Dr. Greene has become widely 
known and greatly respected as a skilful physician, 
and as a gentleman of superior intellectual attain- 
ments, enterprising and public spirited, and of high 
moral character. Notwithstanding the demands of 
his profession, he has found time to devote to real 
estate transactions and various manufacturing 
interests, in which he has exhibited rare business 
judgment and capabilities, and has been mainly suc- 
cessful. He has been a member of the Rhode 
Island Medicil Society since i860, and is a promi- 
nent Mason, having filled many ofifices in that order 
and being still a member of the Board of Censors. 
He was married, November 26, i860, to Miss Eunice 
A., daughter of Philip B and Sarah E. (Cooke) 
Chase, of Portsmouth ; they have had two children : 
Ivah Eunice and Isaac Philip Greene. 



GREENE, Nathaniel, M. D., Middletown, was 
born in Dungeness House, Cumberland Island, 
Georgia, June 22, 1809, eldest son of Nathaniel Ray 
and Anna Maria (Clark) Greene. His father was 
the youngest son of Major-General Nathaniel Greene 
of Revolutionary fame, and his mother was the 
daughter of Ethan and Anna (Ward) Clark of East 
Greenwich, Rhode Island. Dr. Greene was brought 
to Rhode Island in his infancy, and has resided here 
ever since. His early education was mainly acquired 
in the public schools of Kingston and at East 
Greenwich Academy ; for a while he attended school 
at Jamaica Plain, Mass., a then noted school where 
wealthy and cultured people sent tlieir children. 
At the age of fourteen he entered Amherst College 
as a Freshman, remaining one year, and then entered 
the Sophomore class at Brown University, where, he 
likewise remained only one year. For three years 
he lived on and managed a farm. From thence he 
went to Whitestown, Oneida county, N. Y., and 
studied medicine two years under Drs. Peck and 
Clark, who were of the Allopathic school, afterwards 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



237 



studying one year with Dr. Charles F. Eldridge of 
East Greenwich, R. I. At the urgent soUcitation of 
Dr. Abraham Okie of Providence, he began the 
practice of medicine as a homoeopathist, about 
1852, and continued the practice, which was a large 
and lucrative one, for twenty years. He received 
his diploma from the New York Homoeopathic 
College of Medicine and Surgery. In 1842, when 
an attempt was made to overthrow the then-existing 
state government of Rhode Island, Dr. Greene 
organized a company of volunteers, and taking the 
command, reported for service at Chepachet. The 
rebellion was suppressed without the intervention of 
arms, however, and the company was not required 




NATH'L GREENE. 

to do any fighting. Subsequently, at the request of 
Governor Samuel Ward King, he enlisted a company 
of cavalry, of which he retained command for about 
two years. In April 1848 he was elected Senator 
from Middletown to the General Assembly of the 
state, and was three times re-elected to that office, 
in 1849-50-51. Upon the organization of the 
Aquidneck Agricultural Society, in 1850 or there- 
abouts, Dr. Greene was elected its first President. 
In 1878, with the assistance and by the advice of 
Dr. Henry E. Turner, Major Asa Bird Gardiner and 
Colonel James Varnum, he called a meeting of per- 
sons entitled by heredity to membership in the 
Society of the Cincinnati, and reorganized the 



Rhode Island society of that name. This organiza- 
tion was duly recognized by the National Society of 
the Cincinnati, and Dr. Greene was elected Presi- 
dent of the Rhode Island branch, which office he 
has held continuously ever since. Dr. Greene was 
married, at the age of eighteen, to Mary Jane Moore, 
eldest daughter of Colonel William Moore of New- 
port, R. I. 

HALLER, John Frederick, M. D., Providence, 
physician, inventor, journalist and musician, was 
born in Smaland, Sweden, October 16, 1862, son 
of Anders Peter and Anna Gustafva (Peterson). 
His father was a graduate of the Royal Academy 
of Music at Stockholm, a teacher of music and 
other branches in the High School, and a fine 
organist. His ancestors on both sides were well-to- 
do people, whose antecedents can be traced back 
to the earliest history of Sweden. His mother's 
progenitors belonged to the higher nobility of 
Sweden six generations ago, and many of his ances- 
tors have distinguished themselves in the wars of 
Sweden. Dr. Haller early manifested a taste for 
music, literature and invention. He received his 
preliminary education in the public schools of 
Sweden and later under private tuition, and entered 
college with a view to preparing for the study of 
medicine. Circumstances necessitating a change 
of plan, however, he graduated from the Commercial 
Department of the University of Norrkopingin 1880, 
receiving the equivalent of the English degree of 
A. B., and became a bookkeeper and office clerk until 
in 1882, at the age of nineteen, he emigrated to the 
United States. His parents were opulent until he 
was thirteen years of age, since which time he has 
depended upon his own resources, serving as organ- 
ist and as tutor in private families while pursuing 
his college course. After coming to this country he 
was a music-teacher, and organist of the First Luth- 
eran Church in Jamestown, N. Y., and at the same 
time bookkeeper for a wholesale house, until 1884, 
when he commenced the study of medicine. During 
his four-years course of medical study he earned a 
living for himself and mother, as organist and as 
publisher of a Swedish newspaper which he bought 
in 1884, and by working for a time in a piano 
factory at Jamestown, as tuner and regulator. In 
the meantime he attended the Medical Department 
of the University of Buffalo, where he was Prosector 
to the Chair of Anatomy in 1886-7-8, and from 
which he graduated with the degree of M. D. in 
1888. He then sold his paper and removed to 



238 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Providence, R. I., where he engaged in practice 
and has since remained. While his practice has been 
general, Dr. Haller has devoted especial attention 
to maladies peculiar to women and children, in the 
treatment of which he has been very successful. In 
November 1888, shortly after his removal to Provi- 
dence, Dr. Haller started the first Swedish news- 
paper published in Rhode Island, The Tiden, and 
in 1892 he started the Rhode Island Medical Science 
Monthly, the first medical journal established in 
that state. Both of these journals are still published 
under other names, the latter being changed in 




J. FREDERICK HALLER. 

January 1895 to the Atlantic Medical Weekly, of 
which Dr. Haller continued editor-in-chief until his 
resignation in April 1895, owing to increasing 
professional duties. He is a member of the Provi- 
dence Medical Association and the Rhode Island 
Medical Society, and since 1890 has served as a 
member of the Committee on Legislation of the 
last named ; was Assistant Surgeon of the United 
Train of Artillery with rank of First Lieutenant 
1889-92, and is now Surgeon with the rank of Major 
of the United Train Artillery Veteran Association ; 
and is Medical Examiner of Enterprise Lodge 
Knights of Pythias, Unity Lodge of Foresters, 
Rhode Island Lodge of United Workmen and 
several life-insurance companies. He is also a 
member of Mount Vernon Masonic Lodge ; the 



Press and Athletic clubs of Providence, being one 
of the Executive Committee of the former ; and the 
Graduate Students' Association and German Semi- 
nary of Brown University. He is at present taking 
a post-graduate course at Brown for the degree of 
A. M. Dr. Haller has always been interested in all 
public affairs, and has been particularly active in urg- 
ing foreigners in the United States to become good 
and useful American citizens. He was President of 
the Swedish-American Association 1888-90, has been 
lay reader in the Protestant Episcopal Church since 
1890, and was Chairman of the Building Committee 
of St. Ansgarius Church in 1 890-1. He has also 
been active in medical and other literary work, 
being a contributor to various newspapers and peri- 
odicals, and a frequent .speaker at public meetings 
upon temperance, church matters and political 
questions. He has written over two thousand 
articles for medical journals, besides speeches, 
addresses and remarks delivered before medical, 
religious, social and political organizations, on various 
topics, particularly on sanitation, hygiene, state 
medicine and public health. Among his principal 
papers, which have attracted widest notice, are 
" Cholera, its History, Diagnosis and Treatment," 
delivered by invitation at the one-hundredth anni- 
versary of the Windham County Medical Society of 
A'Vindham, Conn., in May 1893 > ^ speech before the 
Senate Committee on Special I<egislation in 1891, 
on "Medical Legislation in Rhode Island," published 
in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal the 
same year; an address before the Rhode Island 
Medical Society on " Physical Deterioration " ; 
" Our Water Supply," published in the Providence 
News in 1890; " Cholera in Hamburg," Providence 
Journal, 1892; "Pure Milk," Providence News, 
July 1895 ; and an address before the Brown Univer- 
sity Graduate Students' Association, on " Modern 
Medicine," in April 1895. In 1892 Dr. Haller 
visited England, Germany, Sweden and Denmark, 
for professional study. He has recently invented a 
surgical and gynecological table which, for simplicity 
of operating, durability, neatness and usefulness, 
compares very favorably with, if it does not excel 
in many respects, any similar table now in use. 
Dr. Haller is not only an accomplished musician, 
but is a composer of more than ordinary talent. 
He has published a number of songs and pieces for 
the organ that have met with much favor, and his 
most recent published composition, a song, "The 
White Rose of Killarney," is an established favorite 
in refined musical circles wherever known. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



239 



HANAFORD, James Boardman, M. D., Appo- 
naug, was born in New Hampton, N. H., February 
21, 1849, son of Joseph Norris and Betsey Nichols 
(Prescott) Hanaford. He is descended on the ma- 
ternal side from Capt. John Prescott, who fell at Bun- 
ker Hill. His early education was obtained in the 
public schools and at the New London Literary and 
Scientific Institution, New London, N. H., now Colby 
Academy, He studied medicine with the late Prof. 
L. B. How of Dartmouth College, graduated from the 
Medical Department of the University of New York 
in 1 87 1, and immediately began the practice of his 
profession in Apponaug, where he has since resided. 




JAMES B. HANAFOHD. 

Dr. Hanaford has been very active in his profes- 
sional life, and has built up a large and lucrative 
practice. He is known as one of the leading 
physicians of the county, has been Town Physician 
of Warwick for many years, and still holds that 
position. In April 1888 he was elected a Repre- 
sentative to the General Assembly of the state, and 
has been re-elected each successive year since, serv- 
ing as a member of the Judiciary Committee of that 
body. He is a member of King Solomon Masonic 
Lodge of East Greenwich, also of the Providence 
Athletic Association, the Warwick Club and various 
other organizations. In politics Mr. Hanaford is a 
Republican. He was married, in 1872, to Anna 
Louise Reynolds ; they have no children. 



HEATHCOTE, John, manufacturer. Providence, 
was born in England, near Manchester, April 30, 
1833, son of Luke and Mary (Ferguson) Heath- 
cote. He came to Providence in boyhood, in 
1842, and his associations therefore have always 
been in that city. He received his education in 
the public schools of Providence, and at seventeen 
was apprenticed to the machine business with the 
Franklin Foundry & Machine Company, at that 
time one of the leading concerns of its kind in the 
country. He served his apprenticeship of four 
years, and soon after entered the employ of the 
Corliss & Nightingale Engine Company, with whom 
he remained two or three years and then went to 
Lawrence, Mass., to help fit up the machinery for 
the Pacific Mills. After that he was two or three 
years with Brown & Sharpe, the founders of the 
now famous manufacturing company of that name, 
in a little old shop in South Main street, when the 
firm employed but seven or eight hands. After 
leaving them he held an official position in one 
of the departments of the Franklin Foundry & 
Machine Company for a time, and about 1866 he 
started business for himself in steam, gas and water 
piping and brass finishing, with a partner, under the 
firm name of Barbour & Heathcote. A few years 
after, Mr. Heathcote bought out the patent of the J. 
S. Winsor Tentering and Drying Machine, and went 
into manufacturing under the same partnership ; 
and in 1874 he bought out his partner's interest and 
prosecuted the business by himself. This drying 
machine, patented in 1861, which Mr. Heathcote 
has made a specialty of his business ever since, was 
for a long time the only chain dryer in use for 
woolen or worsted goods, blankets, shawls, etc. 
Many years after, the machine was copied, in 
another form (horizontal), by foreign builders, and 
later the foreign-built machine was copied by others 
in this country. In 1870 Mr. Heathcote bought all 
the patent rights and entirely remodeled the 
machine, since when improvements have been 
added from time to time, strengthening its parts 
and adding two new patterns for heavier work. At 
the time of writing this sketch Mr. Heathcote is 
putting up a machine of twenty-three tons, the 
largest and the first of its style ever made in this 
country, for a large felt manufacturing concern in 
New York state. Mr. Heathcote is also Treasurer 
of the Russell Electric Manufacturing Company, 
manufacturers of mast-arms for electric street- 
lighting. The special feature of their device is that 
it provides facilities for trimming lamps without 



240 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



lowering, and as many lamps are required in posi- 
tions where it would be impossible to lower them, 
these mast-arms are largely used. About two 
thousand are in use in Providence, and the com- 
pany, who are the only authorized manufacturers in 
the United States, have also supplied Pawtucket 
and various cities in Massachusetts and other 
states. Mr. Heathcote is well-known socially in 
Providence, and is a member of the West Side and 
Pomham clubs. He is prominent in Masonic 
circles, being Past Master of Adelphoi Lodge, and 
Past Commander St. John's Commandery Knights 
Templar, the oldest Templar organization in the 




JOHN HEATHCOTE. 

United States. He is also a member of the Vet- 
eran Firemen's Association, In politics he is 
strongly Republican, but has steadfastly declined to 
accept public office. Mr. Heathcote was married, 
August 20, 1856, to Miss Jane Barbour, daughter of 
George Barbour of Providence ; they have two 
children : Ella J., and George H. Heathcote, who 
is associated with his father in business. 



HILL, Thomas Jefferson, founder of the 
Providence Machine Company, and for more than 
half a century at the head of one of the most im- 
portant iron industries of Rhode Island, was born in 
Pawtucket, R. I., March 4, 1805, son of Cromwell 



and Cynthia (Walker) Hill, and died in Providence, 
July 24, 1894. His father was a blacksmith, and a 
resident of Rehoboth, Mass., until his removal to 
Pawtucket about the year 1800. The boy Thomas 
was unable to fully avail himself of even the limited 
opportunities for education furnished by his native 
town. He attended school until the age of fourteen, 
after which he worked two years in his father's shop, 
and then served an apprenticeship in the machine 
shop of Pitcher & Gay, Pawtucket, where he re- 
mained as apprentice and journeyman nine years. 
In 1830, at the age of twenty-five, he came to 
Providence and took charge of the machine shop 
connected with the steam mill owned and operated 
by Samuel Slater, and four years later purchased an 
interest and became associated with his employer 
under the name of the Providence Machine Company. 
This was the beginning of the business which Mr. Hill 
in after years developed to extensive proportions, 
and which is to-day, under the same name, one of 
the leading manufacturing industries of Rhode 
Island. In 1835 Mr. Slater died and his interest 
was sold to other parties. Mr. Hill continued at 
the head of the business however, and under his 
management the industry expanded and increased 
until in 1845 larger and improved quarters and 
facilities were imperatively demanded. Accord- 
ingly new buildings were erected and equipped, and 
the succeeding year Mr. Hill became the sole 
owner of the plant and business, manufacturing all 
kinds of cotton and woolen machinery. Continued 
prosperity and success followed, and in 1874, a 
charter having been secured some years previously, 
the business was incorporated and organized with 
Thomas J. Hill as President and Treasurer, his son 
Albert Hill as Secretary, and his foreman George 
Hazard as Manager and Agent, retaining the old 
and widely-known name of the Providence Machine 
Company. Although in his later life engaged in 
many other large business enterprises, Mr. Hill 
made this one a special object of his careful atten- 
tion and oversight, and his personal interest in its 
welfare and progress continued up to the time of 
his death. Mr. Hill was a man of great enterprise 
and public spirit, and besides his energy and 
mechanical skill possessed remarkable powers of 
organization together with rare executive capacity 
and financial ability. Few men have done more 
individually to promote and develop the business 
interests of his town, state and section. In 1837 he 
bought the Lee Mill at Willimantic, Conn., and ran 
it seven years as a thread mill. In 1850, having his 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



241 



attention drawn to the grand opportunity for manu- 
facturing at Lewiston, Me., he associated a number 
of Boston capitahsts with him in the purchase of 
the Androscoggin waterpower at that place, organ- 
ized the Bates and the Hill manufacturmg com- 
panies, and built extensive cotton mills there. He 
also erected a foundry and leased a machine shop 
in Lewiston, to aid in supplying the new mills with 
machinery, and this enterprise, afterwards organized 
as the Lewiston Machine Company, has continued 
to manufacture cotton machinery, for mills all over 
the country, to the present time. In 1859 he 
bought the Peckham Mills at East Greenwich, 




THOS. J. HILL. 

R. I., and ran the plant for a time as the Bay Cotton 
Mills, afterwards giving them to his two sons. 
He founded the village known as Hill's Grove, 
seven miles out of the city, and in 1875 started 
there a twenty-thousand-spindle cotton mill, which 
in honor of his wife he named the EHzabeth Mill. 
He organized in 1866 the Providence Dredging 
Company and in 1867 the Rhode Island Malleable 
Iron Works, and in 1874 he organized the Provi- 
dence Pile-Driving Company, which built the 
Crawford-street bridge and constructed other 
public works of magnitude. Notwithstanding the 
demands of his extensive and varied personal 
business interests, Mr. Hill found time to devote a 
share of his services to some of the city's financial 



institutions, and was long prominently identified 
with various banking and insurance corporations. 
He was for nearly forty years President of the 
Limerock National Bank, and twenty-five years 
Vice-President and Trustee of the City Savings 
Bank. He served in the City Council for the 
years 1848-52, 1855-56 and 1878, also repre- 
sented the city in the General Assembly. Mr. Hill 
was an active and prominent member of the Slater 
Club of Providence and the Home Market Club of 
Boston, also of the Rhode Island Agricultural and 
Historical societies. In 1857 he travelled exten- 
sively in Europe for his health, and again in 1867 
he made a European tour on business. At the 
time of his death, which occurred July 24, 1894, he 
was Vice-President of the Rhode Island Veteran 
Citizens Historiccal Association, and as a fitting 
close to this sketch, a few words or brief extract 
may be quoted from the resolutions passed by the 
society as a merited tribute to his memory. Among 
other resolutions referring to the high character and 
distinguished ability of their departed friend and 
associate, and to the loss sustained by the society 
and the public, it was resolved : " That in his 
death Providence has lost an honorable and upright 
citizen, whose word was his bond, and who was ever 
loyal to the city's best interests and success." Mr. 
Hill was three times married: first, October 12, 
1825, to Miss Betsey Brown, daughter of Sylvanus 
Brown of Pawtucket, whose death occurred May 9, 
1859; second, December 9, 1861, to Miss Olive 
L. Farnham, daughter of Stephen Farnham of Can- 
terbury, Connecticut, who died November 16, 
1866; and third, August 9, 1869, to Miss EHzabeth 
C. Kenyon, daughter of John H. and Ruth Kenyon 
of Warwick, Rhode Island, who is now living. Of 
three children that reached maturity, but one is 
now living, a daughter, Mrs. Charles M. Pierce of 
New Bedford, Massachusetts; she has six children, 
the elder son, William C. Pierce, being the present 
head of the Providence Machine Company, of which 
he was the Superintendent for several years during 
the lifetime of his grandfather. 



HOLDEN, Frank Eugene, coal merchant, Woon- 
socket, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, November 
17, 1861, son of Thomas B. and Sarah (Stone) 
Holden. His ancestry is EngHsh. He was edu- 
cated in the common and high schools of Newton, 
Mass., and began work in VVoonsocket as a freight 
clerk for the New York & New England Railroad 



242 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



in 1880. Resigning the position of Freight Cashier 
in 1888 to enter the retail coal business, in 1890 he 
became a Director in the Woonsocket Spool & 
Bobbin Company, to whom he sold his coal business 
but continued in charge of the same as a special 
department of their plant, with enlarged accommoda- 
tions and facilites. In May 1894 he bought back 
the business, and in partnership with H. C. Card, Jr., 
conducted it under the name of the New England 
Coal Company, doing a large retail and wholesale 
business. The latter department of the business 
has been personally cared for by Mr. Holden, and 




FRANK E. HOLDEN. 

included supplying many of the largest manufactur- 
ing plants in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. At 
a quite recent date Mr. Holden sold his retail busi- 
ness, and under his own name is extending his 
manufacturing trade all over New England. The 
pecuHarities of different coals, and the varying condi- 
tions under which they are used, are matters of much 
concern to the consumer. Mr. Holden is success- 
ful in supplying his customers with the coal that is 
best adapted to the particular conditions, which un- 
doubtedly accounts for his success in this line of busi- 
ness. Mr. Holden served as President of the 
Common Council of Woonsocket in 1890 and 1891, 
as Chairman of the Board of Sewer Commissioners 
1893-6 inclusive, and as Representative to the 
General Assembly three terms, 1894-6. He is a 



Director in the Citizens' National Bank of Woon- 
socket, and First Vice-President of the Woonsocket 
Business Men's Association. He is a prominent 
Mason, being a member of Morning Star Lodge, 
Union Royal Arch Chapter and Woonsocket Com- 
mandery, is a Thirty-second Degree Mason and a 
member of Palestine Temple of the Mystic Shrine. 
He is also a member of the Odd Fellows, Royal 
Arcanum, Ancient Order of United Workmen and 
United Order of the Golden Cross. Mr. Holden 
is a great lover of music, and has been for two 
years President of the Woonsocket Choral Associa- 
tion. He is a member of the Woonsocket Baptist 
Church, was Secretary of the Building Committee 
which had in charge the erection of its new brick 
edifice within a few years, and is President of its 
Bible Class Number Two, taught by Colonel Amos 
Sherman, which has a membership of nearly three 
hundred. In politics he is a Republican. Mr. 
Holden has a beautiful modern residence with spa- 
cious grounds at Prospect and Winter streets. He 
was married October 18, 1884, to Miss Hattie A. 
Devere ; they have one child, a daughter : Grace 
Beatrice Holden. 



HUNT, Simeon, M. D., East Providence, was 
born in Seekonk, Mass., April 27, 1837, son of 
William D. and Lydia (Chase) Hunt. He received 
his early education in the public schools, prepared 
for college at the Friends" School in Providence, 
entered Dartmouth in 1858 and graduated in 1862 
with the degree of A. B. Having commenced the 
study of medicine in the winter of 1861 with Dr. 
Phineas Spaulding of Haverhill, N. H., and contin- 
uing later under the preceptorship of Dr. A. B. 
Crosby of Hanover and Dr. William D. Buck of 
Manchester, he took two courses of lectures at Dart- 
mouth Medical College and was graduated as M. D. 
in October 1864. For a short time following grad- 
uation he practiced medicine at Corry, Pa., and 
then, in the spring of 1865, was engaged in practice 
at Springfield, Erie county, that state. After two 
years he returned to his native state and town, 
locating in East Providence, where he has since 
resided, in extensive and successful practice. Dr. 
Hunt is an active member of the Providence Med- 
ical Association, the Rhode Island Medical Society 
and the American Medical Association, and a 
charter member and now an iionorar)' member of 
the Rhode Island Medico-Legal Society. He is a 
charter member and Past Master of Rising; Sun 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



243 



Lodge of Masons, also a member of the chapter, 
commandery and A. A. S. rite, thirty-second degree, 
and of the Veteran Masonic Association. Dr. Hunt 
has served his town as Health Officer several years, 
1885-7, and as a member of the School Committee, 




SIMEON HUNT. 

1886-8. He was appointed State Medical Exam- 
iner by Governor Bourne, and held the office six 
years, 1885-91. Prior to graduating in medicine. 
Dr. Hunt taught school, select and pubhc, for 
several years, 1857-63. In October 1864, shortly 
after graduation, he was commissioned by President 
Lincoln, after a competitive examination. Assistant 
Surgeon of the Sixty-ninth United States (colored) 
Infantry, but did not muster, on account of ill 
health. Dr. Hunt was elected to the Phi Beta 
Kappa Society at Dartmouth in 1862, and was 
honored by the degree of A. M. from that institu- 
tion in 1887. He was married October 25, 1865, 
to Miss Anna M., daughter of Samuel W. Balch of 
Lyme, N. H. ; they have had five children : Charles 
Balch, born September 2, 1866, died in infancy; 
William West, born April 22, 1868, graduated from 
the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, 
1890, and now associated in practice with his father ; 
Charles Balch, born July 24, 1869, died in infancy; 
Fred Balch, born January 8, 1872, drowned August 
10, 1882, and Archie John Hunt, born November 
3, 1878. 



JENCKES, John, State Senator from Barrington, 
was born in Providence, August 30, 1848, son of 
Daniel C. and EHzabeth D. (Randall) Jenckes. 
He is a great-grandson of John Jenckes, who was a 
member of the Legislature from 1772 to 1789 and 
was one of a committee to act in any sudden 
emergency when the Assembly was not in session, 
with full power to take all necessary measures for 
the safety of the colony. He is a great-great- 
grandson of Nicholas Cooke, Governor of Rhode 
Island during the Revolution, and also a great- 
great-grandson of Colonel Elisha Mowry of Revolu- 
tionary times. He is also a direct descendant in 
the seventh generation from Roger Williams. His 
early education was obtained at the Woodstock 
Academy and in the Providence high school. 
For some years he was associated with his father, 
Daniel C. Jenckes, in active business in Providence, 
in commercial fertilizers and masons' materials, a 
business founded in 1844, and carried on success- 
fully for over forty years. He removed to Barring- 
ton in 1870. Mr. Jenckes was elected Represent- 
ative to the Legislature from Barrington in 1893, 




JOHN JENCKES. 

was elected Senator in 1894 and re-elected in 1895 
and again in 1896. He is a member of the Provi- 
dence Athletic Association and of the Rhode Island 
Yacht Club, also of the Rhode Island Sons of the 
American Revolution. In politics he is a Republi- 



244 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



can. He was married, June 15, 1875, to Ida, 
daughter of Acting Master R. L. Kelly, United 
States Navy, who was killed at the taking of Port 
Hudson, Miss., in 1863; they have two children; 
Alice and A. Katherine Jenckes. 



KENYON, George Henry, M. D., A. M., 
Surgeon General of Rhode Island, was born in 
Providence, April i, 1845, son of George Amos 
and Isabella Greene (Brown) Kenyon. On the 
paternal side he is of English ancestry, his Ameri- 
can progenitors being among the early settlers of 
Southern Rhode Island. His maternal ancestors 




GEO. H. KENYON. 

came from Wales, and located in the vicinity of 
Wickford, R. I., where Beriah Brown, the first of 
the family in America, settled in 1640, and twenty 
years later built the house now standing and still 
occupied by his direct descendants. Receiving his 
early education in the public schools, he prepared 
for college in a two-and-a-half-years course at the 
Friends' School in Providence, and entered Brown 
University, from which he graduated in 1864 with 
the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Subsequently he 
was honored with the degree of Master of Arts, 
conferred upon him by the same institution. 
Having an inclination for the profession of medi- 
cine, he gave considerable time to medical studies 



in the last two years of his college course, especially 
devoting himself to practical chemistry in the 
laboratory of the university. Upon leaving college 
he entered the office of Doctors Capron and Perry, 
and after a period of study there entered the 
Medical Department of the University of Vermont, 
where he graduated with the degree of Doctor of 
Medicine in June 1866. Returning to Providence, 
he was elected a member of the Rhode Island 
Medical Society in the month of his graduation, 
and at once commenced practice in his native city, 
where he has since resided. Dr. Kenyon has 
found time in the midst of a busy life and the 
exacting duties of an extensive practice to devote 
some attention to matters outside of his profession, 
and he has been actively interested in social, mili- 
tary and general public affairs. In 1862 he enlisted 
as private in the Tenth Regiment Rhode Island 
Volunteers, and served in the Army of the Potomac 
for the term of his enlistment. After the war he 
became a member of the Grand Army of the Re- 
public, joining Prescott Post of Providence, servdng 
as Post Surgeon for two or three years, and later as 
Medical Director of the Department of Rhode 
Island. In the state militia he served a number of 
years as Surgeon of the United Train of Artillery of 
Providence, and resigned in 1883 to accept an 
appointment on the Governor's staff as Assistant 
Surgeon-General of Rhode Island, which position 
he held until May 1894, when he was elected by 
the Legislature Surgeon General of Rhode Island, 
which office he now holds. Dr. Kenyon has served 
as Secretary and as President of the Providence 
Medical Association, also as Treasurer of the Rhode 
Island Medical Society, and is a member of the 
American Medical Association. He is a prominent 
Mason, being a member of Rising Sun Lodge, 
which he has served in all the various official posi- 
tions, also of Calvary Commandery Knights Templar 
and Rhode Island Sovereign Consistory Scottish 
Rite, and has held various offices in the Grand 
Lodge ; he was Grand Master of Masons in Rhode 
Island for three years, 1889-92, and is now Com- 
mander-in-chief of Rhode Island Consistory Ancient 
and Accepted Scottish Rites. 



MATHEWSON, Ai.mv, proprietor of the Smith- 
field Granite Company, Providence, was born in 
Johnston, R. L, in 1842, son of Benjamin O. P. 
and Mehitable (Willey) Mathewson. He was edu- 
cated in the public schools, learned the granite-cut- 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



245 



ting trade, and has been connected with the granite 
industry since 1877. In 1886 he came to Providence 
and estabHshed himself in business under the name 
of the Smithfield Granite Company, which has been 
very successful and filled many large contracts, and 




ALMY MATHEWSON. 

which has the reputation of having turned out some 
of the best building material ever used in the state. 
Among the buildings for which Mr. Mathewson has 
furnished granite are those of the Gorham Manufac- 
turing Compan}' at Elmwood, Providence Central 
Police Station, Brown & Sharpe Works, Merchant's 
Freezing and Cold Storage Company's plant, dor- 
mitory at Brown University, Corliss Steam Engine 
Works, bridge at Roger Williams Park, Providence 
Water Works, Pawtucket Water Works, Narragan- 
sett Electric-Light Station and many others in and 
around Providence and throughout the state. Mr. 
Mathewson is a thoroughly practical granite mason 
of long experience, and possesses an accurate know- 
ledge of all the recjuirements of his most exacting 
patrons. He furnishes estimates on and executes 
all classes of foundation work for buildings, stone 
and granite fronts, and cemetery work, also contracts 
for the erection of granite trimmings for buildings 
and the heaviest foundations. His company is 
noted for closely following specifications, and for 
performing work in the specified time and in a first- 
class manner. The quarry is situated at Pascoag, 



R. I., on the line of the New England Railroad. 
Mr. Mathewson is a member of the Odd Fellows, 
the Good Templars and the Free Baptist Church. 
In politics he is a Prohibitionist. He was married. 
May 10, 1863, to Miss Rebecca Eddy; they have 
six children : Herbert, Irving, Alice, Lester, Lillian 
and Arthur Mathewson. 



McCLOY, John Aswould, manufacturing jeweler. 
Providence, was born in Newburg, New York, July 
13, 1844, son of John and Jane (Gwenn) McCloy, 
and died in Providence, March 7, 1893. He 
received his early education in the public schools 
of Providence, graduating from the high school in 
May 1863, after which he took a business course in 
Bryant & Stratton's Commercial College in that 
city. Following his graduation from that institution, 
in the latter period of the war of the Rebellion he 
was actively connected with the Quartermaster 
General's department of the state of Rhode 
Island. In 1865 he entered the employ of the 
Fall River Iron Works Company, where he re- 




JOHN A, MCCLOY. 

mained as bookkeej^er until 1870. Soon after, he 
engaged in the manufacturing jewelry business with 
his uncle, James W. Gwinn, in Providence, under 
the firm name of Gwinn & McCloy. Mr. McCloy 
was the market representative of the concern, 



246 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



which carried on a very successful business, their 
specialty being the manufacture of gold lockets. 
After a time Mr. McCloy purchased the interest of 
his partner and carried on the business in his own 
name, continuing until May 1877, when he retired 
from manufacturing to devote his whole time to the 
interests of the Manufacturing Jeweler, a weekly 
paper published in Providence, devoted to the 
interests of the jewelry trade, and of which he 
became Treasurer and Business Manager. Mr. 
McCloy was elected Major of the United Train of 
Artillery in May 1884, and he served four years on 
the School Committee of Providence. He was one 
of the leading spirits in the formation of the 
Providence Jewelers' Club, in 1879, was for two 
years its President and three years a member of its 
Executive Committee, and since then Secretary 
until his death in 1893, the club meanwhile, in 
1883, having changed its name to the New England 
Manufacturing Jewelers' Association. He was one 
of the founders of the Manufacturing Jewelers' 
Board of Trade, was its first Secretary and subse- 
quently for many years its Treasurer. He was also 
a member of What Cheer Masonic Lodge ; Olive 
Braiich Lodge of Odd Fellows ; Sterling Division, 
No. 10, Uniform Rank, Knights of Pythias; Sterling 
Lodge, Knights of Pythias ; Golden Rule Lodge, 
Knights of Honor ; Unity Council, Royal Arcanum ; 
What Cheer Assembly, Royal Society of Good 
Fellows, and Providence Lodge Ancient Order of 
United Workmen. Mr. McCloy was a very active 
man in both social and business life, and had 
many friends, by whom he was greatly missed, on 
account of his geniality, sociabiHty, kindness of 
heart, and boundless energy, which made him the 
life of any company in which he mingled. He was 
twice married : first, November 26, 1868, to Miss 
Clara Wardwell, who died November 16, 1877, 
leaving two children : William Wardwell and John 
Howard McCloy ; second, April 23, 1884, to Miss 
Elizabeth C. Chace, by whom he had one child, 
Beatrice McCloy. 



MILLER, Horace George, M. D., Providence, 
was born in Pawtucket (then North Providence), 
R. L, April 6, 1840, son of Horace and Elizabeth 
Borden (Monroe) Miller. He comes of old New 
England stock, being descended on his father's side 
from Isaac Stearns, who came with Croxcrnor ^Vin- 
throp in 1630, and on the maternal side from John 
Howland, who came over in the Mayflower. His 



early instruction was chiefly imparted by his uncle, 
the Rev. Nathaniel Bowen Cook, afterward the well- 
known Principal of the Bristol, R. I., High School. 
He prepared for college at the University Gram- 
mar School of Lyon & Frieze in Providence, and 
entered Brown University, receiving the degree of 
A. M. from that institution on' graduation in i860, 
and becoming resident graduate in 1861. He 
studied at Harvard Medical School in 1862-5, 
enrolled as a pupil of the late Dr. Lloyd Morton of 
Pawtucket, and receiving his degree of M. D. upon 
graduation. He was house pupil for a time and 
afterwards Assistant Surgeon at the United States 




HORACE G. MILLER. 

Marine Hospital in Chelsea, and " Assistant to the 
Surgeons " at the Massachusetts Charitable Eye and 
Ear Infirmary in Boston. Dr. Miller studied 
diseases of the eye and ear in Europe during the 
years 1865-7, and about the first of January 1868 
began practice in Providence, where he has since 
remained, making the above-named branches a 
specialty of his profession. At the opening of the 
Rhode Island Hospital in 1868 Dr. Miller was 
appointed Ophthalmic and Aural Surgeon, and has 
retained this connection with that institution ever 
since ; he is now the senior member of the staff and 
President of the Staff Association. He is a member 
of the Rhode Island Medical Society, and was its 
President from 1886 to t888; is a member of the 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



247 



Providence Medical Association and served as its 
President in 1876-7; also member of the Ameri- 
can Medical Association, fellow of the American 
Academy of Medicine, member of the American 
Ophthalmological Society, Vice-President of the 
American Otological Society and the New England 
Ophthalmological Society, of which last-named he 
was for two years President. Dr. Miller was mar- 
ried, July 14, 187 1, to Miss Helen, daughter of the 
late John Woods of Boston. 



MONROE, William C, M. D., Woonsocket, 
was born in Woonsocket, February 21, 1850, son 
of Abel Collins and Rebecca (Coe) Monroe, the 
former of Plainfield, Conn., and the latter of Smith- 




WM. C. MONROE. 

field, R. I. His ancestry on the maternal side 
is traceable directly back to John and Priscilla 
Alden of the Mayflower. His early education 
was acquired in the public schools of his native 
place, and at the Friends' School in Providence, 
where he fitted for teaching. He taught as Gram- 
mar Master for the next five years, during which 
period he carried on preparations for the study of 
medicine. He then entered Bellevue Hospital 
Medical College in New York city, graduated Feb- 
ruary 21, 1876, and entered upon the practice of his 
profession in Woonsocket, where he has since 



remained. Dr. Monroe is a member of the Rhode 
Island Medical Society, and has served on the staff 
of the Woonsocket Hospital since its establishment 
in 1888. He was for eight years Coroner of Woon- 
socket. He has also served a number of years on 
the School Board of that city, and as a member of 
the Board of Management of the Friends' School in 
Providence. In politics he is a Republican, and in 
religion a member of the Society of Friends. He 
was married, June 8, 1876, to Miss Carrie M., 
daughter of AVilliam W. Remington, of Phenix, 
R. I. ; they have no children Hving. 



OLNEY, Frank Fuller, Mayor of Providence 
t\vo years, 1894-6, was born in Jersey City, N. J., 
March 12, 1851, son of Elam W. and Helen (Fuller) 
Olney. He is descended from Thomas Olney, one 
of the associates of Roger Williams in the settle- 
ment of Providence in 1636. The Olney family has 
always held a prominent place in the commercial 
and social life of Providence, and from it is derived 
the name of Olney street and of Olneyville, the 




FRANK F. OLNEY. 

principal manufacturing suburb of the city. The 
subject of this sketch acquired his early education 
in the public schools and the University Grammar 
School of Providence, to which city he removed at 
the age of nine years. At seventeen he entered 



248 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



mercantile life as clerk in the office of a woolen 
manufacturer, but after a short time abandoned this 
occupation to engage in the study of law, in the 
office of W. W. & S. T. Douglas, with the purpose 
of adopting that profession. But the continually 
increasing demands of private business interests 
have claimed so large a share of his time and atten- 
tion that he has never engaged in professional 
practice. Mr. Olney has always held an active 
interest in military affairs, and served for three 
years as Commander of the First Light Infantry 
Veteran Association. He is also a member of the 
National Lancers and the Ancient and Honorable 
Artillery Company of Boston, the Continental 
Guards of New Orleans, and a Captain in the 
Boston Light Infantry Corps. In politics he is a 
Republican, and has long been prominent in the 
public life of the city. He was a member of the 
City Council in 1889-90-91 and 1893, and for a 
number of years served as Chairman of the Repub- 
lican City Committee. In 1894 he was elected Mayor 
of Providence, and administered the affairs of the 
executive office with honor to himself and credit to 
the city for two terms, being re-elected in 1895. 
Mayor Olney is a member of the Hope, Squantum, 
Pomham and West Side clubs of Providence, and of 
the Providence Athletic Association. 



PEASE, Leroy Bidwell, of Woonsocket, editor 
and proprietor of the Woonsocket Patriot and Woon- 
socket Evening Reporter, was born in Enfield, Conn., 
February 2, 1842, son of Walter Raleigh and Sophia 
(Bidwell) Pease. His paternal homestead has re 
mained in the possession of the family since the settle- 
ment of the town, having been occupied by them for 
seven generations, and his father still resides on the 
land purchased by his ancestor from the Indians in 
1680. On the maternal side also he is of Puritan 
ancestry, the Bidwells having been among the first 
settlers of Hartford, Conn. When he was but four 
years old his parents removed to Manchester, Conn., 
where his father, who was a contractor and builder, 
was engaged in the erection of buildings for the 
Cheney Silk Works, now of world-wide fame. Leroy 
attended the public schools of Manchester, and 
finished his educational period by a course at Pro- 
fessor J. C. Howard's private academy for boys at 
East Hartford. He then entered a drug store in 
Hartford, and began reading medicine, but after 
two years, experiencing a desire to learn the news- 
paper business, he entered the office of the Tolland 



County Gazette in Rockville, where he remained 
until the fall of 1859. Returning to Hartford he 
worked as a journeyman printer until the war 
times of 1861, when he enlisted as a private in the 
First Connecticut Light Battery and served until 
mustered out in the fall of 1862. He again returned 
to Hartford, and filled various positions on the 
newspapers of that city, New Haven and New York 
until November 1863, when he re-enlisted, in 
Company A, First Connecticut Heavy Artillery, 
and served until mustered out in September 1865, 
several months after the close of the war. During 
a portion of his army term he was engaged in 




L. B. PEASE. 

Special service for the government. After the war 
Mr. Pease resumed newspaper work in New York 
and Hartford, and in the summer of 1870 went to 
Providence. After filling short engagements on the 
Journal and Herald of that city, he came to \\'oon- 
socket and entered the employ of Samuel S. Foss, 
publisher of the Patriot, with whom he remained 
until the fall of 1873, when he started the Evening 
Reporter, the first daily issued in Woonsocket. 
Since then he has devoted himself to the publica- 
tion of that paper and the advancement of his 
general news]")aper business, liaving in tlie meantime 
purchased the Patriot and other competing journals. 
Politically Mr. Pease is a Republican, but has never 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



249 



held public office. He has devoted much time to 
temperance and philanthropic work, and is in- 
terested in all matters relating to the public welfare 
and the promotion of the best interests of his 
adopted city. He was married, in 1874, to Miss 
Helen A., youngest daughter of Samuel S. Mosely 
of Hampton, Conn. ; they have three children : 
Arthur S., Albert L. and Helen L. Pease. 



PECK, George Bacheler, M. D., Providence, 
was born in Providence, August 12, 1843, son of 
George Bacheler and Ann Power (Smith) Peck. He 
is descended in the eighth generation from Joseph 




GEO, B. PECK, 

Peck, who came in 1638 from Hingham, Norfolk 
county, England, and settled at New Hingham, 
Norfolk county. New England, with three sons, a 
daughter, two men-servants and three maid-servants ; 
the descent is through Joseph's eldest son, Joseph, 
Jr. His paternal grandmother was a daughter of 
Reverend William Batcheler of Sutton, Massachu- 
setts, fourth in descent from Joseph Batcheler, the 
original immigrant and founder of that family in this 
country. Through his mother he is connected 
with the Wilbur and the Sayles families. He 
acquired his early education in the public schools 
of Providence, entered Brown University and grad- 
uated in 1864 with the degree of A. B., receiving 



an additional diploma for a course in civil engineer- 
ing extra to the regular college course. In 1867 he 
also received from the university the degree of 
A. M. Soon after leaving college he was mustered in, 
conditionally upon raising a company, as Second 
Lieutenant of Company G, Second Regiment Rhode 
Island Volunteers, December 13, 1864. He was 
on recruiting service and waiting orders until some 
time in January, and then on duty at the United 
States draft rendezvous, popularly known as the 
Conscript Camp, at Grapevine Point, Fairhaven 
(now part of New Haven), Conn., until March 13, 
when he sailed with his company to City Point, 
Va. He participated in the siege of Petersburg 
and the pursuit of Lee, and having at the battle 
of Sailor's Creek received a bullet through his left 
side, he resigned and was honorably discharged 
July 5, 1865. After his return from the war he 
filled a position as bookkeeper in Peck & Salsbury's 
coal and wood office four years, but finding business 
distasteful, he took a summer and winter course in 
the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia 
in 1869-70, followed by a winter and summer course 
in the Medical Department of Yale University in 
1870-1, receiving a diploma from President 
Woolsey in June of the latter year. He then took 
a one-year post-graduate course in the Sheffield 
Scientific School at Yale, devoting attention to 
practical chemistry, determinative mineralogy, as- 
saying, stockbreeding, and military and physical 
geography. He was Assistant Chemist at the Naval 
Torpedo Station at Newport in 1872 4, was tem- 
porarily in charge of the Chemical Department of 
the University of Vermont in the fall of the latter 
year, and in June 1875 he commenced the practice 
of medicine in Providence, which he has prose- 
cuted unremittingly ever since. For upwards of 
fifteen years his office was in the house where his 
mother was born, and on the exact spot where his 
grandfather, John Knowles Smith, kept an old- 
fashioned grocery and gunsmithery during his entire 
life ; but his increasing and overwhelming cares 
necessitated the removal of his office to his home, 
where he and his father were both born, the house 
being built by his grandfather, Benjamin Peck, in 
1803. Dr. Peck has been Admitting Physician to 
the Rhode Island Homoeopathic Hospital since the 
opening of that institution in 1886, declining a 
regular staff appointment, and has served as a Trustee 
ever since that date. He was admitted to member- 
ship in the Rhode Island Homoeopathic Society in 
April 1875 ; was Secretary from August 1875 to Janu- 



250 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



ary 1883, Vice-President 1883-4, President 1885-6, 
Censor 1887-8-9 and Treasurer 1890-1-2, his period 
of official service covering seventeen and a half years. 
He became a member of the American Institute 
of Homoeopathy in 1879, was Acting Chairman of 
the Section in Obstetrics in 1880, Chairman in 
1881, 1886, 1888 and 1892, Secretary in 1887, 1889 
and 1890, and in 1895 was elected Censor for a 
term of five years and appointed Chairman of the 
Committee on Foreign Correspondence, to which 
latter position he was reappointed in 1896. He was 
Vice-President of the Western Massachusetts 
Homoeopathic Medical Society in 1886-7, a^nd 
is an honorary member of the Homoeopathic Med- 
ical Society of the State of New York and of the 
Missouri Institute of Homoeopathy. He is one of 
the thirteen founders of Prescott Post, Grand 
Army of the Republic, of which he was Surgeon in 
1 88 1-3 and 1890-6, was Medical Director of the 
Department of Rhode Island G. A. R. in 1894-5-6, 
is a Companion of the Massachusetts Commandery 
of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the 
United States, was President of the Rhode Island 
Soldiers' and Sailors' Historical Society 1892-6, 
and was Vice-President for three years at an 
earlier period, and has been Adjutant and ex-officio 
necrologist of the Marine Artillery Veteran Associ- 
ation since 1875. After service as a private for 
brief periods in the First Ward Light Guard and 
the University Cadets, volunteer wartime organiza- 
tions, he was enrolled in the Providence Marine 
Corps of Artillery in March 1863, and during the 
eight subsequent years he held nearly every official 
position, having a Major's commission the last two 
years. He was also Surgeon of the Battalion of 
Light Artillery Division, Rhode Island Militia, from 
1876 until its disbandment in 1879. Dr. Peck has 
also held civil office, having served on the School 
Committee of Providence from April 1881 to 
December 1895. He is a member of What Cheer 
Masonic Lodge of Providence, Washington Com- 
mandery Knights Templar of Newport, and Rhode 
Island Sovereign Consistory, Thirty-second Degree, 
Scottish Rite. He is a member of the First Baptist 
Church of Newport, member of the Board of 
Managers of the Rhode Island Baptist State Con- 
vention since 1876, Treasurer of the Narragansett 
Baptist Association since 1877 and Clerk from 1877 
to 1886 and since 1892, and in 1889 was Moderator 
of that association, composed of twenty-seven 
regular or associate Baptist churches in the south 
part of the state, being the only layman that has 



ever held such a position in the state. He is also 
a member of the Rhode Island Baptist Social 
Union. Dr. Peck has a ready pen, and has con- 
tributed to the pubHcations of the Rhode Island 
Soldiers' and Sailors' Historical Society some inter- 
esting sketches under the titles of " A Recruit 
before Petersburg," and "Camp and Hospital." 
He is also the author of a " Historical Sketch of the 
Narragansett Baptist Association," " Pabula Neona- 
torum," annual reports of original investigation to 
the American Institute of Homoeopathy, and other 
professional articles contributed more particularly 
to the Hahnemannian Monthly, the Southern Jour- 
nal of Homoeopathy and the American Homoeo- 
pathist, besides a series of " Pencil Jottings " 
furnished the Providence Daily Journal between 
1868 and 1872, with other articles and reports at 
divers times, also a few papers to the Christian 
Secretary, of Hartford, Conn. Dr. Peck claims to 
have never had any politics, in the general meaning 
of the term ; but he has been an unswerving 
Republican in principle since the days of " Fremont 
and Jessie," and is a Monometallist and a Protec- 
tionist. He is unmarried. 



PECKHAM, Charles Henry, Secretary of the 
State Board of Charities and Corrections, was born 
in North Scituate, May 11, 1833, son of Abner W. 
and Patia F. (Harris) Peckham. He is of old 
Colonial and early Rhode Island ancestry on both 
sides, and on the paternal side is a descendant of 
Stephen Hopkins, one of the founders of Rhode 
Island and a signer of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. His early education was acquired in the 
public schools of his native town, and later he 
attended Fruit Hill Seminary in North Providence. 
At about the age of twenty he came to Providence, 
where he was clerk in a bank for two or three years 
and then entered into a business partnership under 
the firm name of Spicer & Peckham, stove manu- 
facturers. This relationship continued thirty-two 
years, and the firm was long known as one of the 
leading houses of its line in Providence. Mr. 
Peckham served three years in the Legislature, as a 
member of the House in 1885-6, and of the Senate 
in 1886-7-8. In the Senate he was chairman of 
the Committee on Corporations one year, and on 
the Finance Committee two years. He was for 
eleven years President of the Rhode Island Society 
for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry, now 
the Rhode Island State Fair Association, and under 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



251 



his executive management the finances of the society 
were increased from an annual loss of about eigh- 
teen hundred dollars to a profit of fifteen or sixteen 
thousand dollars a year. Mr. Peckham was also 
largely instrumental in founding the State Agricul- 




CHAS. H. PECKHAM. 

tural College ; while in the Legislature he introduced 
a resolution making inquiry as to the Hatch fund, 
providing government aid for such institutions, was 
appointed chairman of the committee of inquiry 
and afterwards was made chairman of the com- 
mittee on locating the school. In 1888 he was 
appointed a member of the Board of State Charities 
and Corrections, and in 1893 was made Secretary 
and Purchasing Agent, which position he now 
holds. In politics he is a Democrat. Mr. Peckham 
resides in Providence winters, but his summer 
home is in North Scituate, the place of his birth. 
He was married, February 27, 1862, toMissCelia S., 
daughter of George T. Spicer of Providence ; they 
have no children living. 



PERRY, John Edward, M. D., was born in 
Wakefield, South Kingstown, R. I., May 28, 1847, 
son of John G. and Harriet T. (Hazard) Perry, and 
continues to make his home there. His father 
has twice been General Treasurer of the State of 
Rhode Island, and thirty years Town Clerk of South 



Kingstown. Both parents are living. Dr. Perry 
claims close relationship to Commodore O. H. 
Perry, the hero of Lake Erie, and to Commodore 
Matthew C. Perry, famed for the treaty that he 
negotiated with Japan, by which the ports of that 
country were opened to the world, being cousin to 
them, as is shown by the Perry genealogy as follows : 
Edward Perry, who came from England, had two 
sons, Samuel and Benjamin. From Samuel was 
descended his son James ; his son John ; his son John 
R. ; his son John G. ; and his son John E., the 
subject of this sketch. From Benjamin came his 
son Freeman, and his son Raymond, the father of 
the Commodores. Dr. Perry's early education was 
obtained in the public schools, and later in the 
Connecticut Literary Institute at Suffield, where he 
bore the honor of the Presidency of the Calliope 
Ovat, the oldest society of the Institute. Deter- 
mining to enter' the professional ranks, young Perry 
attended the Yale Medical College, and later the 
College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, 
a department of Columbia College, from which 
he graduated February 27, 1873. He commenced 




JOHN E. PERRY, 

practice immediately in Wakefield, where he has 
since resided. His specialty is obstetrics, in which 
he has been eminently successful. A similar success, 
however, has attended his efforts in other depart- 
ments of medicine, and has won for him a substantial 



252 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



practice and the character of an able, painstaking 
physician. A course of popular health lectures 
having been projected in South Kingstown in 1886, 
Dr. Perry delivered a lecture on hygiene and ac- 
companied it with illustrations on the blackboard. 
Among other contributions to medical literature, 
Dr. Perry is the author of an article on " Pediculo- 
phobia," which he read before the Rhode Island 
Medical Society, and also an essay on " La Grippe," 
published in the Narragansett Times in 1890, in 
which he called attention to the disease that pre- 
vailed in 1842, and which was called " Tyler's Grip," 
after the then President of the United States. He 
also showed that it was closely related to the 
Southern "dengue" or break-bone fever, in which 
opinion he was sustained by Louise Fiske Bryson, 
M. D., of New York, and by the French Academy. 
Dr. Perry was elected a member of the Rhode 
Island Medical Society in 1874, and of the Provi- 
dence Franklin Society (scientific) in 1875. He 
has been twice elected Master of Hope Lodge, 
A. F. & A. M., No. 25, is a member of the Grand 
Lodge, and of Franklin Chapter No. 7, A. F. & 
A. M. In June 1891 he was appointed by the 
Grand Masler to represent Hope Lodge at the 
Centennial of the Grand Lodge held in Provi- 
dence. Among the civil offices he has held is 
that of Deputy Town Clerk in 1869, Town Phy- 
sician, and in 1891 the Governor appointed him 
Medical Examiner for the Second District of 
Washington county, for the term of six years. 
Dr. Perry was married, May i, 1878, to Miss 
Elnora E. Crawford ; they have one daughter : 
Harriet E. Perry. 



POWEL, John Hare, Ex-Mayor of Newport, was 
born in Paris, France, July 3, 1837. His father, 
the late Colonel John Hare Povvel, originally bore 
the surname of Hare, and assumed the additional 
one of Powel by legislative act in 1806. Through 
him the subject of this sketch is descended from 
Edward Shippen, Charles Willing and Robert Hare, 
three Englishmen who settled in Philadelphia prior 
to 1773. On the maternal side his ancestry in- 
cludes the Verplanck, Beekman, Van Cortlandt, 
Schuyler, Provost and other early Dutch families 
of New Netherlands, now New York, and also by 
the marriage of his grandfather. Colonel Andrew 
de Veaux of South Carolina, with the French 
Huguenot family of that name. He received his 



education principally under the instruction of an 
English tutor, after which he studied law with 
Henry J. Williams of Philadelphia. A large part of 
his early life was devoted to travel in America and 
Europe, and the remainder was passed at his 
father's inherited estate, Powelton, now a part of 
West Philadelphia, and at Newport, the summer 
home of the family since the early part of the 
century. The death of his father, which took place 
at Newport in 1856, left him in possession of 
a house on Bowery street in that city, adjoining 
the residence of his eldest brother, and this, 
together with his interest in the place and his 
fondness for field sports and outdoor exercise of all 
kinds, induced him to give up his residence in 
Philadelphia. Upon his marriage in i860 he 
removed to Newport, and became at once identified 
with the permanent interests of the city, which has 
since numbered him among its most valued citizens. 
Although actively interested in various local socie- 
ties and public affairs, and serving two years as a 
member of the Board of Health, Mr. Powel inva- 
riably declined to accept any political office, until in 
1886 he was induced to become an independent 
candidate for Mayor. In response to the call for 
troops in 1862, Mr. Powel, who had been captain 
of the Newport Company of the National Guard 
from its organization, volunteered with his com- 
pany, which became Company L in the Ninth 
Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers. He received 
from Governor Sprague his commission as Captain in 
May 1862, was promoted to Major in June and to 
Lieutenant-Colonel in July following, and in the fall 
of the same year was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel 
of the Fifth Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers. 
Later he was frequently tendered and urgently 
solicited to accept the Colonelcy of either of the 
nine-months regiments then being raised in Rhode 
Island, and many other positions, all of which he 
was compelled to decline. In February 1863, he 
was elected a member of the Newport Artillery 
Company, was chosen Lieutenant-Colonel in April 
following, and became Colonel in December 1864, 
to which position he was annually re-elected until 
his resignation in August 1877. Colonel Powel 
was married in June i860 to Miss Annie Emlen 
Hutchinson, daughter of I. P. Hutchinson, a prom- 
inent merchant of Philadelphia ; she died .'Kpril 23, 
1872. They have had two children: John Hare 
Powel, Jr., whose decease preceded that of the 
mother, and Pemberton Hare Powel, born January 
7, 1869, now living. 




^ 




/^^-IZ-X^ 



-^ 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



25; 



SAYLES, William Francis, one of the most 
distinguished and successful manufacturers that the 
manufacturing state of Rhode Island has produced, 
was born in Pawtucket, September 2, 1824, son of 
Clark and Mary Ann (Olney) Sayles, and died May 
7, 1894. On the paternal side he was a lineal 
descendant of Roger Williams, in the sixth genera- 
tion ; his mother was of the Olney family, long and 
prominently identified with the history of the state, 
and who also trace their ancestry back to the 
founder of Rhode Island. His father was a master- 
builder and merchant of Pawtucket. William was 
favored with the advantage of a good classical and 
mercantile education. He attended the Fruit Hill 
Classical Institute and the Seekonk Classical School 
in Rhode Island, then spent about two years in Phil- 
lips Academy at Andover, Mass., upon leaving which, 
in 1842, he entered the Providence commercial 
house of Shaw & Earle, serving first as bookkeeper, 
then as salesman, and finally being intrusted with 
the management of the concern's financial affairs. 
In the latter part of 1847, he embarked in business 
for himself, as a manufacturer. A small print-works 
establishment in the town of Lincoln, near Paw- 
tucket, was sold at auction, and Mr. Sayles became 
the purchaser. He at once erected additional 
buildings and converted the plant into a bleachery 
for cotton cloth, and started it with a capacity for 
turning out about two and a half tons daily. He 
was without previous knowledge of the business, 
and labored under the disadvantage of insufficient 
capital, yet his indomitable spirit and remarkable 
business capacity made the enterprise a success, 
and he steadily enlarged the works until in 1854 
the capacity of the establishment was four tons 
daily, and his reputation for superior work had 
become so well established that he was at that time 
bleaching about three-fourths of all the fine grades 
of white cotton goods manufactured in the United 
States. In June 1854 the whole plant was destroyed 
by fire, and the results of years of labor were swept 
away in a few hours. But William F. Sayles was 
not of the stamp to succumb to a single stroke of 
misfortune, however severe. The work of rebuilding 
was immediately undertaken, on a larger scale and 
with structures of a more permanent character, and 
in the fall of that year the bleachery was again in 
operation, with its daily capacity increased to six 
tons. From that time enlargement and extension 
have gone on year by year, until the capacity of the 
works reached fifty tons or three thousand yards of 
bleached goods daily, and the Moshassuck Bleach- 



ery, whose origin has been thus briefly narrated, 
became widely known as the largest and most 
complete establishment of its kind in the world. In 
1863 Mr. Sayles was joined in partnership by his 
brother Frederic, the firm name becoming W. F. & 
F. C. Sayles, and the present great industrial estab- 
lishment at Saylesville in the Moshassuck Valley 
stands as a living and imposing monument to the 
brother's combined enterprise, energy and business 
abihty. In 1877 the Messrs. Sayles built the Mo- 
shassuck Valley Railroad, connecting Saylesville 
with the New York, New Haven & Hartford Rail- 
road at Woodlawn, which, besides a passenger 
service, transports the supplies and products of the 
bleachery and also those of the noted Lorraine 
Woolen Mills, likewise the creation of the Sayles 
Brothers. These mills and their surrounding village 
of Lorraine are also situated in the Moshassuck 
Valley, about midway between Saylesville and the 
junction of the branch railroad with the main line. 
From his unbounded enterprise and great ability as 
a financial manager and adviser, Mr. Sayles naturally 
became associated with many manufacturing cor- 
porations and business institutions outside of his 
extensive interests at Moshassuck and Lorraine. 
At the time of his death he was President of the 
Slater Cotton Company, Pawtucket, of which he 
was the originator ; a Director in the Ponemah 
Mills, the largest cotton manufacturing concern in 
Connecticut and one of the largest in New Eng- 
land j and a Director or stockholder in various 
mills and enterprises in Massachusetts and else- 
where. He was also President of the Slater National 
Bank of Pawtucket, and a Director in the Third 
National Bank of Providence. Although a staunch 
Republican in politics, he was only once prevailed 
upon to enter political life, when he served two terms 
as Senator from Pawtucket in the General Assembly. 
He was for a number of years President of the 
Pawtucket Free Library, and a member of the 
board of trustees of Brown University. For a time 
he served as Lieutenant-Colonel in the Pawtucket 
Light Guards, and during the war of the Rebellion 
he was a constant and liberal contributor to all 
patriotic ends. In 1878 he donated the sum of 
fifty thousand dollars to Brown LTniversity, for the 
erection of a building as a memorial to his son, 
whose untimely death occurred in 1876, during his 
Sophomore year in the college. Subsequently the 
fund was increased to a hundred thousand, and the 
Sayles Memorial Hall, a large and beautiful stone 
edifice, was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies 



254 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



in June 1881. Mr. Sayles was a man of high 
personal character as well as strictest commercial 
honor, upright in all dealings with his fellow-men, 
and active and public-spirited as a citizen. The 
termination of his busy, useful and instructive life, 
which took place May 7, 1894, at the age of about 
seventy years, was an event that occasioned keen 
regret and sincere mourning, not merely in the com- 
munity in which he had always resided, but through- 
out his widely-extended circle of business friends 
and associates, by whom he was universally honored 
and revered. Mr. Sayles was married, October 30, 
1849, to Miss Mary Wilkinson Fessenden, daughter 
of the late Hon. Benjamin Fessenden of Valley 
Falls, R. I.; she died September 20, 1886. Three 
children are now living: Mary (Mrs. Roscoe S. 
Washburn), Martha F. and Frank A. Sayles. 



TINGLEY, Frank Foster, architect. Providence, 
was born in Providence, October 7, 1844, son of 
Henry F. and Lucy A. (Draper) Tingley. He is 
descended from Samuel Tingley, who came from 




FRANK F. TINGLEY. 

Maiden, Mass., to South Attleboro, that state, 
where he died in 17 14, and from Isaac Draper 
who came from Dedham, Mass , to South Attle- 
boro. His ancestors on both sides were long- 
lived people; in one family of fourteen, four 



lived to be over ninety, seven over eighty, and 
two over seventy. His father was born in Provi- 
dence, and his mother in South Attleboro. His 
grandfather Sylvanus Tingley, in connection with 
Samuel Tingley his brother, the style of the firm 
being S. & S. Tingley, established himself in 
the marble business in Providence in 181 1, and 
was the first to apply steam power for sawing 
marble in the United States. His grandfather 
Isaac Draper, who lived to the age of ninety-two, 
was one of the pioneers of the modern tanning 
industry, the beginning of the extensive tanning in- 
terests of Pawtucket, R. I., having sprung from 
the tanneries in South Attleboro. Belonging to 
a race of tanners, Isaac Draper followed in the 
footsteps of his grandfather and father, himself and 
the latter being the inventors and original manu- 
facturers of pickerstring and lace leather, used for 
belting purposes. Frank Foster Tingley acquired 
his early education in the public schools of Provi- 
dence. On leaving the High School he entered 
the architect's office of Alpheus C. Morse, where he 
studied and worked two years, and afterwards was 
engaged with James C. Bucklin, also a prominent 
architect, for two years, since which time he has 
devoted himself largely to monumental architecture. 
For three years he was engaged in the monumental 
business with his father, one of the proprietors of 
the Tingley Marble Company, Providence. He 
then went into architecture on his own account for 
a while, but not liking it particularly well, again 
took up the monumental business, as agent and de- 
signer for the Smith Granite Company of Westerly, 
R. I., in which connection he remained nine years, 
1874 to 1883, working up a large business for the 
company in designing and selling. From 1883 to 
i886 he was engaged in the work of developing 
the Chapman Quarry of Westerly, and since that time 
has been in business for himself. Mr. Tingley 
is a thorough and expert architect, and has de- 
signed some noteworthy buildings, among which 
is the large Kent & Stanley building in Provi- 
dence, since called the Manufacturers' Building, 
seven stories, covering an acre of ground, and cost- 
ing with the land over a half-million dollars. But 
as has been said, he has made a specialty of mon- 
umental work, in which line the originality and 
beauty of his designs have extended his reputation 
throughout New England and beyond, and brought 
his professional services into extensive demand. 
Among notable examples of the monumental art, 
which stand as representatives of his genius and 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



255 



skill in designing, are the Barnaby monument in 
Providence; the Ames monuments at North Easton, 
Mass. ; the Governor Padelford monument and the 
Abell tomb at Swan Point, Providence ; several 
of the Whitin family monuments at Whitins- 
ville, Mass., and others in nearly all the principal 
cemeteries of New England. Mr. Tingley is also 
distinguished as an amateur musician. He has 
been a church organist ever since he was fifteen 
years of age. He was organist of Grace Church, 
Providence, at eighteen, when Bishop Clark was 
in the height of his fame for pulpit oratory, and has 
held engagements in nearly all the churches of 
Providence, also at Dr. Putnam's in Roxbury, nearly 
thirty years ago, when that famous divine was in 
the height of his power as a preacher, and at 
the Shawmut Church, Dr. Webb's, in Boston, in 
the palmy days of this famous preacher. At Dr. 
Putnam's church in Roxbury, Mr. Tingley's choir was 
composed of Dr. C. A. Guilmette basso, Sarah Bar- 
ton soprano, Matilda Phillips contralto, and William 
Macdonald tenor, — a quartet of famous soloists and 
artists. It has often been remarked in musical circles 
of Boston that never in that city, before or since, has 
the musical part of a church service been more faith- 
fully and exquisitely rendered than by this renowned 
quintet of artistic and finished performers that consti- 
tuted the regular choir organization of the noted 
Roxbury Church. He is an accomplished pianist 
and accompanist, and years ago, in the sixties, 
travelled with the Camilla Urso Concert Company. 
For many years he has ranked as the first organist 
and pianist of Providence, his work especially 
excelling in nicety of execution, and in delicacy and 
power of expression. His most effective work may 
be regarded in his playing of the church service 
and choir accompaniments. An extract from a 
newspaper criticism of a concert given by Mr. 
Tingley and his wife in the Beneficent Congrega- 
tional Church, Providence, in 1885, may not be out 
of place in this sketch, as showing how his musi- 
cianly abilities were regarded in his native city : 
" Mr. F. F. Tingley, the organist of the church," 
said the critic, " gave on this occasion a recital to a 
large invited company, and although he disclaims 
being, and really is not, ' in the profession,' yet it 
must be conceded that he played with the skill, 
judgment and taste of a decidedly able professor. 
His regular profession, as is well known, is that of 
monumental architect and designer ; and to this his 
time is mainly devoted. Having manifested, how- 
ever, even in boyhood, remarkable aptitude for 



music, and having subsequently attained a high 
degree of skill as an executant on the organ, he has 
steadily been ' pressed into service,' as we may 
truthfully say, in different churches, here and in 
Boston, for years past, and has consequently had 
large experience. Mr. Tingley is noted for being a 
very clean and sure player. Mrs. Tingley is well 
known and esteemed in our city as a church-quar- 
tet soprano and soloist of superior quality. Her 
voice is one of great purity and sweetness as well as 
of good volume and compass." On one occasion 
in later years, on an Easter Sunday, Mr. Tingley 
being in Boston, just as he was leaving the hotel for 
church, he was requested, on account of the sudden 
illness of the organist of the New Old South 
Church, to take his place at the organ. Mr. Ting- 
ley reluctantly consented to play the elaborate 
Easter service at sight, and upon one of the largest 
organs in the country, with which he was not 
familiar. The pastor apologized to his audience 
for the new organist who was to officiate at such 
brief notice, but the latter went through the service 
without any trouble, and was warmly congratulated 
on all sides for the successful performance. Mr. 
Tingley is a member of the Rhode Island Chapter 
of Architects, and of the Congregational Club of 
Providence. In poHtics he is a Republican. He 
enlisted in the Tenth Rhode Island Regiment, in 
the war of the Rebellion. The regiment was 
detailed to guard the defences of Washington. 
After being with his regiment for two weeks, and 
before it was mustered in, he was found to be a 
minor and was discharged and returned home. He 
was married, in Providence, July 9, 1867, to Miss 
Orlena A. McConkey of Stonington, Conn. ; she 
died May 9, 1895, leaving no children. Mrs. Ting- 
ley was a noted singer, possessing a highly culti- 
vated voice of remarkable purity and sympathetic 
qualities. For many years in church and oratorio 
music she was recognized as the first of Providence 
singers, and her untimely death was deeply and 
widely lamented. 



WATSON, Colonel Arthur Hamilton, merchant 
and all-round business man. Providence, was born 
in Lonsdale, R. I., September 20, 1849, son of Rev. 
Elisha F- and Mary (Dockary) Watson. He is a 
lineal descendant of an old Rhode Island family. 
He received his early education in the public schools, 
and graduated at Brown University in the class of 
1870. In 187 1 he became a clerk in the wholesale 



256 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



boot and shoe house of Greene, Anthony & Com- 
pany, Providence, was admitted to partnership in 
the business in 1873, ^^d is now the active partner 
in the firm, which is the largest boot and shoe house 
in the city. Colonel Watson is also a Director in 



^, ^ 




several years was Chairman of the Committee on 
Finance. He was Chairman of the joint special 
committee on the investigation of the Municipal 
Court in 1884, and also served on the joint special 
committee on the celebration of the two hundred 
and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the town 
of Providence. He served as Colonel on the staff 
of Governor Bourne three years, and is a member 
of the Hope and Athletic clubs. Colonel Watson 
was married, February 20, 1873, to Miss Annie P. 
Sprague, daughter of Colonel Byron Sprague of 
Providence ; they have four children : Harriet, 
Byron, Mary Dockary and Annie Hamilton Watson. 



WETMORE, George Peabodv, United States 
Senator, son of William Shepard and Austiss Derby 
(Rogers) Wetmore, was born in London, England, 
August 2, 1846, during a visit of his parents abroad. 
The Wetmore family in America is descended from 
Thomas Whitmore, who emigrated from England in 



ARTHUR H. WATSON, 

the Globe National Bank, the Union Railroad 
Company and the Narragansett Electric Lighting 
Company, is Vice-President of the Nicholson File 
Company, and President of the Providence, Fall 
River & Newport Steamboat Company, a corpora- 
tion formed by the recent consolidation of all the 
steamboat lines on Narragansett Bay. He has been 
one of the Vice-Presidents of the Providence Board 
of Trade, and was Vice-President of the Board of 
Managers of the World's Columbian Exposition for 
Rhode Island. Colonel Watson was elected to the 
Common Council as a member from Ward Two in 
1883, and served continuously in that body until 
1893, the last three years as President of the Coun- 
cil. Ltl 1892 he was unanimously nominated by the 
Republicans for Mayor, but was defeated by Mayor 
William K. Potter, the Democratic candidate for 
re-election. He was then elected Alderman, and 
served three years, two years as President of the 
Board, retiring in January 1896. During Colonel 
Watson's period of service in the City Council he 
served on various important committees, and for 




GEO. PEABODY WETMORE. 

1635, and was one of the original patentees of 
Middletown, Conn. William Shepard Wetmore, 
Governor ^Vetmore's father, was born in St. Albans, 
Vt., in 1 80 1, and was a distinguished merchant, 
residing for many years in South America and 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



257 



China, and finally in New York city, where he 
closed his business career. Shortly thereafter he 
became a citizen of Newport, R. I., where he lived 
until his death. Seth Wetmore of Middletown, 
Conn., grandfather of Governor Wetmore, married 
a daughter of General William Shepard of Westfield, 
Mass., and went at the end of the last century to 
St. Albans, Vt. He was a lawyer by profession, 
a Judge, member of the Legislature and of the 
Governor's Council of Vermont for many years, and 
a Fellow of the University of Vermont. On the 
maternal side, Governor Wetmore is descended from 
the Rev. John Rogers, fifth President of Harvard 
College and the first in the list of graduates of that 
institution to become its head. The subject of this 
sketch has lived at Newport, R. I., since he was 
four years old, and received his early education 
at private schools in that city, kept by Messrs. 
Reade & Thurston and by the Rev. William C. 
Leverett. He was graduated from Yale College in 
the class of 1867 and from the Columbia College 
Law School, of New York City, in 1869, and was 
admitted to the Bar of New York and Rhode 
Island the same year. Mr. Wetmore is President 
of the Newport Hospital and a Director in various 
other associations and institutions ; is a Trustee of 
the Peabody Education Fund ; Trustee of the Pea- 
body Museum of Natural History in Yale University, 
and was nominated a Fellow of the University in 
1888, but declined; and is a member of the State 
Commission to build the new Rhode Island State 
House. In politics he is a Republican ; he was 
first Presidential Elector of Rhode Island in 1880 
and again in 1884; was President of the Newport 
Blaine and Logan Campaign Club in 1884 ; was a 
Member of the State Committee to receive the 
Representatives of France, on the occasion of their 
visit to Rhode Island in 1881 ; was governor of 
Rhode Island in 1885-6 and in 1886-7, and 
although defeated for a third term received a 
greater number of votes than at either of the two 
preceding elections when successful. In 1889 he 
was defeated on the eighth ballot for United States 
Senator, during his absence in Europe; but was 
elected to that office on June 13, 1894, receiving a 
unanimous vote from the General Assembly in the 
Senate, House and Joint Assembly. His term 
expires March 3, 1901. He was married December 
22, 1869, to Edith Malvina Keleltas, daughter of 
the late Eugene Keteltas of New York ; they have 
four children : Edith M. K., Maude A. K., William 
S. K. and Rogers P. D. K. Wetmore. 



WILCOX, Robert, M. D., Pascoag, was born in 
Mapleville, R. I., November 14, 1854, son of WiUiam 
and Anna (Tabb) Wilcox. He is of English 
descent. His early education was that of the dis- 
trict school, following which he attended Wesleyan 




ROBERT WILCOX. 

Academy at Wilbraham, Mass., the University of 
Michigan at Ann Arbor, and the Long Island College 
Hospital at Brooklyn, N. Y., from which institution 
he graduated in June 1878 with the degree of 
Doctor of Medicine. He left the Glendale (Rhode 
Island) mill in July 1869, being then fifteen years 
old, and went to live with his preceptor, Dr. Ben- 
jamin Joslin, in Mohegan, R. I., with whom he 
remained at this period eleven years. After gradu- 
ation he practiced in company with Dr. Joslin two 
years, under the firm name of Joslin & Wilcox. In 
1878 he commenced practice in Pascoag, where he 
has continued ever since. Dr. Wilcox has served 
his town as Tax Collector, in 1876 and 1880, as 
Superintendent of Schools in 1882, as Town Coun- 
cilman for two years, and as Coroner from i886 to 
1892. He was appointed by the Governor, April i, 
1892, Medical Examiner for Burrillville and North 
Smithville, District Number Five, which ofiice he 
now holds. He is a member of the United Order 
of Workmen and of the Foresters, for which he is 
Medical Examiner. He is also a member of the 



258 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



West Side Club of Providence. In politics Dr. 
Wilcox is a Republican. He was married, June i8, 
1879, to Miss Frances Caroline, daughter of the late 
Edwin Brewer of Wilbraham, Mass. 



WILKINSON, George, silversmith, and General 
Superintendent of the Gorham Manufacturing 
Company, Providence, for many years, was born in 
Birmingham, England, April 13, 18 19, son of 
George and Ann (Waterhouse) Wilkinson, and 
died in Providence, December 28, 1894. His 
mother was a daughter of Robert Waterhouse of 
Sheffield, England. He received his education in a 
private school until the age of twelve, and after- 




GEORGE WILKINSON. 

wards studied in the Birmingham School of Design, 
of which Thomas Wallis was Head Master. At 
fifteen he was apprenticed to the trade of die- 
sinking and served until twenty-one, then worked 
at the business until the age of thirty, when he en- 
tered into business in that line for himself. Soon 
after he came to this country, and in 1857 he be- 
came connected with the Gorham Manufacturing 
Company, manufacturers of silverware. Providence. 
At that time the annual product of this now famous 
concern did not equal that of a single month of the 
present time, and the " little workshop " located on 
Steeple street was far from being widely known. To 



Mr. Wilkinson as General Superintendent belongs 
no small share of the credit for the company's sub- 
sequent success and development. To him great 
credit is due for the artistic and consistent 
character of the designs for which the Gorham 
Company's productions are justly noted ; for the 
possession of that thorough knowledge of the numer- 
ous and various processes of manufacture which is 
so necessary in order to enable any one person to 
efficiently direct the operations throughout an 
entire estabHshment j and for a quick and complete 
comprehension of the adaptability of machinery 
and tools, the greater portion of which are of a 
special character, quite unlike those of any other 
manufacturing industry. At the time he joined 
the company Mr. Wilkinson was in the midst of 
early and vigorous manhood, a serious and enthu- 
siastic student of all that was best in art, and 
possessed of perceptions of the keenest order. As 
a lover of the beauties of nature, he was by instinct 
prepared to appreciate the excellences of art. It 
has justly been said, " The devotee of art traces in 
nature many beauties which by the uncultivated 
eye are unnoticed." It was, therefore, great good 
fortune for the Gorham Company to secure, in the 
early period of its career, the services of a man so 
peculiarly fitted to develop the industry. Gifted to 
an unusual degree with the talent for the produc- 
tion of new ideas, and associated with this a desire 
to learn from the best schools of art what had gone 
before ; with a practical knowledge, gained by 
experience, sufficient to enable him to do with his 
own hands that last touch which often gives the 
whole character to a piece of fine workmanship, 
coupled with the rare characteristic of being able to 
inspire others to perform better work through their 
confidence in him, and their wilHngness to follow 
his directions as a master of the craft ; not confined 
to a servile imitation of any one school, but suffi- 
ciently broad in mind to appreciate and take what 
is best from all schools and ages, Mr. Wilkinson 
combined a fertility of resources, and a production 
so varied in its character, that it may safely be said 
that he has been to the metal industry of the 
United States, during a period of its most rapid 
development, what Wedg^vood was to the pottery 
industry of England at a period a century earlier. 
A cultivated and studious mind caused him to see a 
true value in the possession of suitable art publica- 
tions, and he steadily accumulated for the company 
a rare and valuable collection of books and folios 
of plates, not for the purpose of copying in toto, 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



259 



but purely for educational and suggestive use. 
This country is lacking in the possession of those 
facilities afforded by such art treasures as the 
British and South Kensington museums of London, 
the Louvre at Paris, and others of note in Conti- 
nental cities. It acts as a healthy stimulus or 
inspiration to intelligent artisans to have placed in 
their hands, or find within ready reach, works 
entirely new to them, and which convey to their 
minds new forms and ornamentations, both emi- 
nently suggestive and helpful. With the growth of 
the business came assistant designers and modellers, 
often coming from Paris, London, or other Old 
World cities, where art schools and museums of 
world-wide reputation furnished an unfailing supply 
of the best examples of art work in all its varied 
materials. To such workmen the Gorham library 
is an attractive and helpful feature, and upon them 
it exerts a potent influence. In addition it is an 
interesting collection of examples of meritorious 
industrial art work, forming a choice and valuable 
museum. In the foregoing respects the manufactory 
of the Gorham Company is unlike that of other 
silversmiths, and to these features must be attrib- 
uted much of their success. Mr. Wilkinson had 
for some years looked forward with the deepest 
thought and kindUng interest to the time when the 
"old shop," which had reached the full limit of its 
repeated expansions, should be vacated and a new 
plant erected, more thoroughly in touch with his 
idea of the company's requirements for the future. 
Directly the site was determined upon and the land 
purchased, he prepared a series of architectural 
plans and submitted them for approval. While his 
own feelings suggested and favored the introduction 
of features in the front fagade more ornamental, or 
even picturesque, and in keeping with or as reflect- 
ing the nature of the business, a desire of others in 
favor of constructive simplicity overruled. Upon 
the adoption of the general design. Constructing 
Engineer E. P. Sheldon was engaged to lay out and 
prepare the working drawings, and to superintend 
the erection of the buildings. Yet Mr. Wilkinson, 
though always busily occupied with the preparation 
of new designs for the company's products, found 
time to do a large share of the planning of the new 
shops, and locating the machinery, tools, etc., 
which for many years had been his experienced 
study. His wish, felt and expressed, to see the 
new works completed and in successful operation 
was gratified, and a deep sense of satisfaction came 
to him in beholding such a consummation of a life's 



work, and in hearing the expressions of appreciation 
which spontaneously came from many sources of 
those most competent to judge of the difficulties 
encountered and successfully overcome. Mr. Wil- 
kinson was a member of the Masonic fraternity for 
some years, but retired from the order, feeling that 
it would take too much time from his business. He 
was married, March 31, 1847, to Miss Harriet Butter- 
worth ; they had twelve children — seven sons 
and five daughters — ten of whom are now living : 
Jessie, Walter, William S., Arthur W., John B., 
Amey H., Harriet S., Esther Ann, Ruth and Robert 
Wilkinson. 



WOODS, John Carter Brown, lawyer, State 
Senator, and President of the Board of State 
Charities and Corrections, was born in Providence, 
June 12, 1851, son of Marshall and Anne Brown 
(Francis) Woods. Among his ancestors are many 




J. C. B. WOODS. 

whose names are prominently associated with the 
foundation and growth of the country. Captain 
Thomas Marshall, who came to this country in 
1634; Lieutenant Isaac Marshall, an officer in the 
Revolutionary army ; Francis Cooke, who came over 
in the Mayflower, 1620; Lieutenant John Thompson, 
who came in the second ship, Fortune ; Samuel 
Woods, of England, who came to this country in 



26o 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



1700 ; Samuel Woods, his son, of Princeton, Mass., 
who took an active part in all the interests of the 
time, especially during the years preceding the 
American Revolution, was a member of the Com- 
mittee of Correspondence, and with others signed 
and published a renunciation of allegiance to the 
British Crown ; Rev. Alva Woods, A. M., D. D., 
Harvard A. B., grandson of Samuel Woods of 
Princeton, Professor of Mathematics and Natural 
Philosophy in the Columbian College, Washington, 
D. C, President of, and Professor of Moral and 
Intellectual Philosophy in, Transylvania University, 
Lexington, Ky., and the University of the State of 
Alabama, and for many years most prominently 
identified with Brown University as President ad 
interim, Professor of Mathematics and Natural 
Philosophy, and as Trustee and Fellow; Marshall 
Woods Brown, A. B., A. M., University of City of 
New York, M. D., son of Alva Woods, Trustee of 
Brown University since 1856, Treasurer from 1866 to 
1882 ; Chad Brown, who came to this country in the 
ship Martin, July 1638, soon came to Providence, 
and with others prepared the first written form of 
government for the colony of Providence, which was 
adopted and continued in force until 1644, when 
Roger Williams returned from England with the 
first charter; John Brown, closely identified with 
the Revolutionary period, and with the events that 
preceded and followed it, among the first to take 
measures against the imposition of unjust taxes upon 
the colonies by Parliament, and to protest against the 
tyrannical and unlawful acts of armed British vessels 
in Narragansett Bay, was the organizer and leader 
of the expedition against the British armed schooner 
Gaspee in Narragansett Bay on the night of June 9, 
1772, which resulted in the destruction of the vessel 
and the wounding of Lieutenant Duddingston, her 
commander, furnished supplies and munitions of 
war to the Continental army, helped to raise recruits 
for it, was one of a committee appointed by Congress 
to build vessels for the Continental navy, and gen- 
erally rendered material service in the cause of 
American Independence, was in the General As- 
sembly for several years during the War of the Rev- 
olution, and was a member of the Assembly that 
voted to renounce allegiance to the British Crown, 
for two successive times a member of the Conti- 
nental Congress, and prominent in securing the 
adoption of the Constitution of the United States 
by Rhode Island ; Nicholas Brown, brother of the 
foregoing, also closely identified with the Revolu- 
tionary period, among the first to take measures 



against the imposition of unjust taxes upon the 
colonies, and to protest against the unlawful acts of 
armed British vessels in Narragansett Bay, assisted 
in furnishing supplies, munitions of war, and recruits 
to the Continental army, was a member of a com- 
mittee appointed by Congress to build ships for the 
Continental navy, was one of a commission to adjust 
accounts between Rhode Island and the United 
States, and took a prominent part in securing the 
adoption of the Constitution of the United States by 
this state ; Nicholas Brown, son of the above, the 
chief benefactor of Brown University, which bears 
his name, besides his other gifts to the college, 
building at his own expense Hope College and Man- 
ning Hall, and presenting them to the corporation, 
was a Federalist, and was in the General Assembly 
for several years, and was also a Presidential Elec- 
tor ; and John Brown Francis, grandfather of Mr. 
Woods and grandson of the above John Brown, Gov- 
ernor of the state 1833-8, and United States Sen- 
ator from February 18, 1842, to January 17, 1844. 
The subject of this sketch received his early edu- 
cation in the private school of Rev. C. E. Wheeler, 
Providence, and entered Brown University, gradu- 
ating in the class of 1872 with the degree of A. B., 
and delivering the classical oration. In 1875 he 
received from Brown University the degree of 
A. M. He studied law in the office of Thurston, 
Ripley & Company, Providence, graduated at the 
Harvard Law School in 1874, receiving the degree 
of LL. B., was admitted to the Rhode Island Bar 
in 1874 and to the Bar of the United States Circuit 
and District Courts in 1876, and has since practiced 
his profession in Providence. Mr. Woods was 
elected a Trustee of Brown University June 19, 
1884, and still holds that office ; he has also been a 
member of the Advisory and Executive Committee 
since June 17, 1885, and Secretary of the Committee 
since September 4, 1889. He has been a member 
of the Alpha (Brown University) Chapter of the 
Phi Beta Kappa from June 187 1, serving on the 
Committee on Appointments from June 1883 to 
June 1884 and from June 1885 to June 1891, and 
on the Committee of Arrangements from June 
1884 to June 1885, was Vice-President of the 
Chapter from June 1891 to June 1893 and Presi- 
dent from June 1893 to June 1895. He has 
been Moderator of the Charitable Baptist Society 
of Providence since June 9, 189 1, prior to which 
he was Clerk of the Society fourteen years. In 
June 1892 he was appointed a member of the 
Board of State Charities and Corrections, for six 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



261 



years, and in October 1895 was elected President 
of the Board, which office he at present fills. He 
was also appointed, in May 1895, a member of the 
Board of Trustees of the Rhode Island Institute for 
the Deaf, for six years. He has been President of 
the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Animals since June 1888, one of the 
Directors of the Rhode Island School of Design on 
the part of Brown University since September 1894, 
and a Director in the Providence National Bank 
since January 1886. Mr. Woods has been active in 
the formation of various societies and social organi- 
zations. He is one of the founders of the Rhode 
Island Society of the Sons of the American Revolu- 
tion, was Vice-President from June 1890 to June 
1 89 1 and President from the latter date to June 
1892, was Delegate to the National Congress of the 
Societies at Chicago in 1893, and has been several 
times a Delegate to meetings of the National 
Society. He is one of the founders of the Hope 
Club of Providence, was continuously a governor of 
the club from its inception to the present time, 
excepting from December 1888, when he resigned 
from the management, to November 1892, was 
Vice-President from October 1875 to October 
1 88 1, and has been President since November 9, 
1892. He is also one of the founders of the 
Country Club at Choppequonsett, and a member of 
the Agawam Hunt Club, the Providence Press 
Club and the Providence Board of Trade. Mr. 
Woods was elected a member of the Common 
Council in January 1877, and served continuously 
until January 1885, declining a re-election at that 
time, and was President of that body in the years 
1 881-2-3-4. While a member of the Council he 
served on joint standing committees on City Prop- 
erty, Finance, Police, City Engineer's Department 
(ex-officio) and Ordinances, being Chairman of 
the last-named committee in 1879 and 1880. He 
was also a member of many special committees, 
among them serving as Chairman of the Committee 
appointed to report upon the future management of 
the Providence Reform School; the result of the 
investigation made by this committee was the abol- 
ishment of that school and the establishment of the 
Sockanosset School for Boys and Oaklawn School 
for Girls at the State Institution in Cranston. 
He was a member of the committee on the City 
Engineer's Department during the inquiries made 
by that committee as to the safety of certain public 
buildings, the pollution of the Moshassuck and 
Woonasquetucket rivers and Providence harbor, 



and the best methods of disposing of the city 
sewage. As President of the Common Council, 
he was ex-officio member of the School Committee 
of Providence in 188 1-2-3 -4. ^i"- Woods was a 
member of the Rhode Island House of Represen- 
tatives from May 1 88 1 to May 1887, a member of the 
Senate from December 189 1 to the May session of 
1892, was again elected Senator in April 1894 and re- 
elected in 1895 and 1896, serving at present in that 
capacity. While in the House of Representatives 
he was a member of the Joint Committee on Rules 
and Orders, and the Committee on Judiciary, being 
Chairman of the latter in 1884-5, 1885-6 and 
1886-7 ') also Chairman of a committee appointed in 
March 1886, to inquire into and report upon the ad- 
ministration of criminal law in the state, and Chair- 
man of a Joint Special Committee appointed in April 
1886 to consider changes in laws relating to the 
administration of justice in the inferior courts, and 
to the suppression of intemperance. While in the 
Senate in 1892 Mr. Woods was Chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee, and member of a committee 
appointed to examine into the condition of the 
roads and public highways of the state, with a view 
to improvement in their construction and main- 
tenance, and to revise and consolidate the laws 
relating to the same ; in consequence of the labors 
of this committee, legislation looking to improved 
highways was passed in 1895. In June 1894 he 
was appointed one of a Joint Committee to con- 
sider the subject of exemption from taxation, and 
taxation generally, and the report was made in 
April 1896. Also in June 1894 he was a member 
of a Joint Special Committee to confer with the 
city of Providence, with a view to obtaining a site 
for a State Armory, and in May 1895 he was ap- 
pointed a member of the Rhode Island State 
Armory Commission. In May 1895 he was made 
Chairman of the Commission to cause a geological 
survey to be made of portions of the state contain- 
ing rocks suitable for road building, and in May 
1896 he was appointed on the Commission to 
Revise the Militia Laws of the State. He has also 
served as a member of many other special com- 
mittees. Politically Mr. Woods is a Republican. 
He was a member of the Republican City Com- 
mittee of Providence from 1879 '^o 1896, declining 
a re-election, and was Chairman from 1886 to 1893, 
declining to serve at the head of the committee 
longer. He was also a member of the Rhode 
Island Republican State Central Committee from 
1890 to 1893, and has been prominently connected 



262 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



with many other RepubHcan organizations, conven- 
tions, etc. While in college he was a member of 
the Epsilon Chapter of the Zeta Psi. He is 
unmarried. 



YOUNG, Arthur, retired business man, and for 
many years Postmaster at Slatersville, was born in 
Jewett City, Conn., August 23, 1828, son of Alfred 
and Lucy (Peck) Young, and died December 19, 
1894. His parents were both of English ancestry. 



WESTCOTT, Amasa Smith, Judge of the Mun- 
icipal Court of Providence for many years, was born 
in North Scituate, R. I., September 21, 1818, 
son of John and Cecilia (Owen) Westcott. He 
is a lineal descendant of Stukley Westcott, one 
of the first settlers of Providence and Warwick, an 
associate of Roger Williams in his expulsion from 
the church in Salem, and one of the distinguished 
founders of the Rhode Island colony. His grand- 
father on the paternal side was a soldier of the 
Revolution. Judge Westcott's early boyhood was 
passed in the town of his birth, where he pursued 
the ordinary studies of the public schools. Being 
ambitious of securing a college education, he 
attended the academies at Brooklyn and Plainfield, 
Conn., and after a further preparatory course 
of study under the tuition of Judge Bosworth of 
Warren, entered Brown University and graduated 
therefrom in 1842. Following graduation he studied 
law with Judge Bosworth, was admitted to the bar 
in 1844, and for a year thereafter remained in the 
office of his preceptor. In 1845 he came to Provi- 
dence and engaged in the practice of his profession 
until 1852, when he was elected Clerk of the Court 
of Common Pleas of Providence County, and 
was annually re-elected, with the exception of 
one year, until 1867. He was then elected Judge 
of the Municipal Court of Providence, and ex-ofificio 
Judge of Probate, which position he occupied with 
marked ability and honor for seventeen years, or 
until his retirement from public Hfe in 1884. Judge 
Westcott has served as a member of the City Coun- 
cil of Providence, and was Chairman of the Com- 
mittee which in 1875 erected the handsome 
Providence County Court House. He was also at 
one time Major of the Twelfth Regiment Rhode 
Island MiHtia. He has been a member of the 
Squantum Club since 1870, and is a stockholder 
in the Providence Athenseum. In poHtics he was 
originally an old-line Whig, but has been a Repub- 
lican from the formation of that party. Judge 
Westcott was married April 7, 1845, to Miss Susan 
Carpenter, daughter of Daniel Bosworth of Warren 
and sister of the late Judge Bosworth ; they had 
three children who died in infancy. 




ARTHUR YOUNG. 

his mother being a descendant of Joseph Peck of 
Belton HaW, Yorkshire, England, who emigrated to 
America in 1638. The original coat-of-arms of the 
Pecks is still in the possession of the family, the 
motto being "Prohibiten! quam divitias"; it was 
first borne by William Peck of Sanford Hall, Essex. 
Henry Peck was among the first settlers of New 
Haven, coming to America in the company of 
Governor Eaton and the Rev. John Davenport in 
1637. The subject of this sketch was educated in 
the public schools of his native place, and began 
his business career with Tiffany, Young & Ellis, 
now Tiffany & Company, New York. In 1848 he 
accepted a position with J. & W. Slater, cotton 
manufacturers of Slatersville, R. I., remaining with 
the firm and their successors, William S. Slater 
and John W. Slater, as confidential clerk, until 
he retired from active business in 1885. Mr. 
Young served for many years as Postmaster at 
Slatersville, and in 1883 and 1884 represented the 
town of North Smithfield as Senator in the State 
Legislature. In politics he has been a staunch Re- 





\ 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



263 



publican from the formation of the party. He was 
married, April 19, 1852, to Miss Alice Wood; they 
had three children : Arthur P., Alfred W., who died 
in infancy, and AHce W., wife of Frederick H. 
Potter. 

ALDRICH, Hon. Nelson Wilmarth, United 
States Senator, was born in Foster, Rhode Island, 
November 6, 1841, son of Anan E. and Abby 
(Burgess) Aldrich. He is of old New England 
ancestry. Senator Aldrich's early education was 
acquired in the public schools of Killingly, Con- 
necticut, and at the East Greenwich Academy in 
Rhode Island. Shortly after leaving the latter 
institution, in 1857, he came to Providence and 
secured a situation as bookkeeper with Waldron & 
Wightman, wholesale grocers. His aptitude for 
business and his close application to the interests 
of the firm led to his admission as a partner in 
1866, and the firm name was changed to Waldron, 
Wightman & Company. The high mercantile stand- 
ing which he early acquired, together with his public 
spirit and his reputation for sterling integrity, practi- 
cal wisdom and sound judgment, soon led to his con- 
nection with other business enterprises and institu- 
tions, and brought him into prominence in public 
affairs. He has been President of the First Na- 
tional Bank of Providence and a Director in the 
Roger Williams Bank, and has been President of 
the Board of Trade and a member of the Ex- 
ecutive Committee. Upon the organization of 
the Union Railroad Company, a few years since, 
formed by a consolidation of the various street- 
railway lines and interests of Providence, Mr. 
Aldrich was called to the Presidency of that cor- 
poration, which position he assumed and still 
holds. To his intelligent direction, liberal policy 
and energetic methods is chiefly due the de- 
velopment of the superior street-railway system 
of Providence, which provides the public with 
accommodations and facilities not surpassed by 
those of any other city of its size in America, and 
which in itself is a successful and profitable enter- 
prise for its stockholders. He has served as a 
Trustee of the Providence, Hartford & Fishkill 
Railroad, also as a member and director of the 
commission that built the Narragansett Hotel, and 
as a Trustee for the property. He has also been 
one of the Commissioners on Cove Lands since 
1 87 1. Mr. Aldrich made his first entry into public 
life in 1869, when barely twenty-eight years old, as 
a member of the Common Council of Providence 



from the Fifth Ward. He served in that capacity 
two years, and was then elected to the Council from 
the Sixth Ward, serving from June 1872 to January 
1875, and was President of that body from June 187 1 
to January 1873. In April 1873 he was appointed 
a member of the Joint Special Committee of the 
Aldermen and Council to obtain plans for a public 
market. He also served on the committee that built 
the Cranston-street bridge. In 1875 he was elected 
Representative to the General Assembly, serving 
two years and as Speaker in the latter year. In 
1878 he was elected Representative from the 
First District to the Forty-Sixth Congress, and in 
1880 was re-elected for a second term by the largest 
vote ever cast for Representative in his district. 
Mr. Aldrich's activity and keen grasp of pubHc 
affairs soon made him an influential member of the 
House of Representatives, and he was instrumental 
in rendering his state valuable service in many ways. 
In 1880 he was elected Senator, as successor to 
Senator Burnside, taking his seat at the beginning 
01 the session of 1881, and has been twice re-elected, 
his present term expiring in March 1899. In his 
Senatorial career, because of his especial business 
education and training, Mr. Aldrich's work has 
naturally been chiefly directed to practical rather 
than to purely political affairs. He has been a dili- 
gent worker on the Finance Committee, the Com- 
mittee on Transportation Routes, and in various 
other capacities in which his wide knowledge of 
commerce, transportation, finance and general busi- 
ness have brought him into national prominence 
and enabled him to establish an influence that at 
various times has rendered the country efficient and 
exceedingly valuable service. His personal power 
in the Senate was signally shown upon the change 
in the political complexion of that body, by his 
retention at the head of the Committee on Corpor- 
ations in the District of Columbia, when Democratic 
chairmen were in almost every instance substituted. 
Yet his strong Republican partisanship has found 
abundant exhibition in his advocacy of the Force 
bill and his efforts to secure a modification of the 
rules, so that a majority could transact business, and 
in his Chairmanship of the Committee on Rules, 
which entitled him to leadership in many protracted 
and heated partisan contests. He is a strong advo- 
cate of sound money and the Protection policy, and 
was a warm supporter of the McKinley bill when 
pending. Senator Aldrich has been a member of 
the Masonic fraternity since 1866, and has held 
various offices in the order ; was Eminent Com- 



264 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



mander of Calvary Commandery Knights Templar 
in 187 1, and has served as Grand Commander of 
the Grand Commandery of Massachusetts and Rhode 
Island. He is a life member of the Franklin 
Lyceum of Providence, of which he was Secretary 
in 1864, Vice-President in 1866, and for a long time 
a member of the Lecture Committee. Mr. Aldrich 
was married, October 9, 1866, to Miss Abby P. 
Greene ; they have several children. 




CHARLES J. ARMS. 



BLODGETT, William Winthrop, lawyer. Paw- 
tucket, was born in Randolph, Vermont, July 8, 
1824, third son of Eli Blodgett. He received his 
early education in the pubhc schools, prepared for 
college at the Orange County grammar school in 
Randolph, and in 1843 entered the University of 
Vermont at Burlington, from which he graduated 
with the highest honors in 1847. Soon after gradu- 
ation he became Principal of the Academy at Keene, 
N. H., which position he filled for a few months, 
and then commenced the study of law in the office 
of William P. Wheeler of Keene. y\fterward he 
studied with Hon. Isaac F. Redfield. Chief Justice 
of Vermont, and in the office of Wires & Peck at 
Burlington, and was admitted to the bar of \'ermont 



in June 1850. In the following October he re- 
moved to Pawtucket, Mass., and in November was 
admitted to practice in that state by the Supreme 
Judicial Court then sitting at New Bedford. Mr. 
Blodgett has continued to practice his profession in 
Pawtucket to the present time. He has been fre- 
quently, and of late years continuously, honored with 
positions of pubHc trust and responsibility. In 
1859-61 he represented the towns of Atdeboro and 
Pawtucket in the Massachusetts Legislature. In 
1 86 1 the long pending controversy between the 
states over the boundary culminated in a com- 
promise line agreed upon by the counsel of the 
respective states and submitted 10 the Legislatures 
for ratification. The proposed line, arbitrarily 
drawn, was unsatisfactory to Rhode Island, not 
giving due regard to natural division, and giving 
many advantages to Massachusetts, and was certain 
of being rejected by the Rhode Island Legislature. 
A new line was proposed by Mr. Blodgett, and was 
finally adopted; and March i, 1861, the town of 
Pawtucket, and that part of Seekonk lying on the 
Providence and Pawtucket rivers, now known as 
East Providence, became a part of the state of 
Rhode Island. On the day of transfer Mr. Blodgett 
was elected to the Rhode Island Senate — the first 
time in the history of the state that a member of 
the General Assembly was elected without the con- 
stitutional requisite of a year's residence. Mr. 
Blodgett has since continued the practice of law in 
Rhode Island. In 1868 he was elected Judge of 
Probate for North Providence, and held the office 
by annual election until 1874, when the town and 
village of Pawtucket were consolidated into one 
town under the same name. He has continued in 
the office for the town and city of Pawtucket, with 
the exception of two or three years, until the present 
time, a period of more than twenty-five years. Mr. 
Blodgett has also represented the towns of North 
Providence and Pawtucket and the city of Paw- 
tucket in the Rhode Island Legislature, of which 
he is now a member, more than twenty years. He 
was also at one time Commissioner of Insolvency 
in Massachusetts, and a Bank Commissioner in 
Rhode Island. He has been for many years a 
member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Paw- 
tucket, a member of the Diocesan Convention and 
of the Standing Committee of the Diocese. Mr. 
Blodgett was married, in 1855, to Miss Salome W. 
Kinsley of Pawtucket ; they have had six children : 
Ellen H., Edward W., Lloyd Morton, John, Chauncey 
Hayden and Kinsley Blodgett. 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



265 



CAMPBELL, Frank A., Postmaster of Woon- 
socket, was born in Providence, July 6, 1858, son of 
Patrick and Jane (Mercer) Campbell. His early 
education was acquired in the public schools and 
La Salle Academy, in his native city. Following 
his school-days he worked at tailoring for a time in 
Providence. In 1879, he came to Woonsocket, 
where the following year he established himself in 
the merchant-tailoring business. He served as Tax 
Collector in the years 1886-7, ^^^^ ^^ December of 
the latter year was appointed Postmaster by Presi- 
dent Cleveland. In this capacity he served a term 
of nearly five years, when, the opposing political 




F. A. CAMPBELL. 

party having secured control of national affairs, he 
was superseded by a Republican official. Mr. 
Campbell retired from office, temporarily as it after- 
wards proved, with a record that had never been 
surpassed in the Woonsocket postmastership, for 
efficiency, intelligent personal supervision of every 
detail of the work, uniform courtesy and general 
satisfaction. He secured additional mails for Woon- 
socket, among them a much-needed but hitherto- 
denied outgoing Sunday mail, and also secured a 
new and handsome location for the office in the new 
Longley Building, and fitted up the new quarters in 
accordance with the latest improved designs of post- 
office furnishings. Under his administration many 



new rules were adopted, and were continued in 
force by his successor. On account of his record, 
when a change of national administration again oc- 
curred, and once more the Democracy came into 
power, Mr. Campbell's reappointment was favored 
and strongly urged, not only by his friends in his 
own party, but by business men of both parties. 
There was a warm contest for the office, but Mr. 
Campbell had besides his other support the unani- 
mous endorsement of the Democratic State Central 
Committee, and in June 1893 he was reappointed 
Postmaster by President Cleveland. Mr. Camp- 
bell was married, in March r883, to Miss Delia 
Burke of Woonsocket. 



CHAPIN, Charles Value, M. D., Superintendent 
of Health for the city of Providence, was born in 
Providence, June 17, 1856, son of Joshua Bicknell 
and Louise (Value) Chapin. He is of well-known 
and highly-respected Rhode Island ancestry, his 
father having been a practicing physician of repute 
in Providence, and for many years Commissioner of 
Public Schools for the State of Rhode Island. He 
received his early education at the well-known 
English and Classical High School of Providence, 
and graduated from Brown University in the class 
of 1876 with the degree of A. B. He adopted 
medicine as a profession, and after studying for a 
year in the office of Dr. George D. Wilcox, a 
distinguished physician of Providence, attended lec- 
tures at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and 
Bellevue Hospital Medical College of New York, 
graduating from the latter institution in 1879. He 
at once received the appointment of House Physi- 
cian to Bellevue Hospital, where he served until 
October 1880, when he returned to Providence, 
where he established a successful private practice. 
He was appointed Professor of Physiology in Brown 
University in 1883, where his lectures and methods 
of instruction received high approval. Dr. Chapin 
had given much attention to questions of public 
health and municipal sanitary management, and in 
1884 he was elected Superintendent of Health for 
the city of Providence, which position he has con- 
tinuously held to the present time, his executive 
ability commanding the warm approval of the 
citizens, and his reports attractmg the attention of 
distinguished scientists in municipal sanitation. In 
1888 he was elected City Registrar. He was 
librarian and patriologist of the Rhode Island 
Hospital from 1882 to 1886, and is now one of the 



266 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



Consulting Physicians. He is also a consulting 
physican at the Providence Lying-in Hospital. In 
189 [-92 he was Director of Physical Culture at 
Brown University. He is a lecturer at the School 
of Sociology in Hartford, Conn. ; is a fellow of 
the Rhode Island Medical Society, and a member 
of the Providence Medical Association, of which he 
was President in 1894; and is a member of the 
American Academy of Medicine, the American 
Public Health Association, the American Statistical 
Association, and the Association of the Massachu- 
setts Board of Health. He is the author of the 
following essays, which received the award from the 
Fiske fund of the Rhode Island Medical Society : 
"The Sympathetic Nerve, its Relation to Disease," 
1880; "Origin and Progress of the Malarial Fever 
now prevalent in New England," 1884; "Present 
State of the Germ Theory of Disease," 1885 ; " Meth- 
ods and Practical Results of the Treatment of the 
Malarial Disease now prevalent in New England," 
1886 ; "What Changes has the Germ Theory made 
in the Means for the Prevention and Treatment of 
Consumption?" 1888. He has also published: 
'• Some Points in the Etrology of Scarlet Fever," 
1889 : "Disposal of Garbage in the City of Provi- 
dence," 1893; "Purification of Public Water Sup- 
plies," 1893; and Reports on Public Health, and 
Births, Deaths and Marriages in Providence. Out- 
side of his office Dr. Chapin has not taken part in 
public Hfe. He was married. May 6, 1886, to Miss 
Anna Augusta Balch ; they have one son : Howard 
M., born May 11, 1887. 



In politics he is a Republican. He was married, 
June 24, 1874, to Miss Marie Louise Angus ; they 
have two children: Neil A., born April 13, 1876, 
and Duncan Campbell, born July 3, x88i. 



CAMPBELL, John H., Editor and Publisher of 
the Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner, Phenix, was born in 
the village of Phenix, May 27, 1849, son of Neil 
and Catherine (Hart) Campbell. He is of Scotch 
ancestry, his parents having come to this country 
from Scotland in 1849, the year of his birth. He 
received his early education in the public schools of 
Providence, after which he learned the printer's 
trade and has since mainly followed that voca- 
tion. He established himself in business in 
Phenix, where for some time he has been publisher 
and editor of the Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner, a 
newspaper devoted to the interests of one of 
the most thriving sections of the state, Mr. Camp- 
bell has been President of the Rhode Island Press 
Association, and has represented his native town 
(Warwick) three terms in the General Assembly. 



COLWELL, WiLMARTH H., architect, Providence, 
was born in Providence, July 24, 1849, son of John 
W. and Hannah (Wing) Colwell. His ancestor, 
Robert Colwell, the first of the name in this country, 
came from England. His father, John W. Colwell, 
was a Freewill Baptist Clergyman and for many 
years pastor of the church in South Providence. 
In 1852, the Rev. Mr. Colwell's church was strug- 
gling under a burdensome debt, and the pastor 
being offered a good salary for his services as 
school-teacher on the Pacific Coast, he was in- 
duced to accept the position by the prospect of 
thus securing the means to pay off the church 
mortgage. He accordingly started for California, 
but died on the passage, as a result of exhaustion 
and fever brought on by caring for the sick passen- 
gers of the steamer Monumental City. His death 
left the wife and mother with seven children, the 
eldest thirteen ; of these three are now deceased, 
one being the late Rev. John W. Colwell, a Congre- 
gational clergyman of Barrington, Rhode Island. 
Wilmarth, the subject of this sketch, was educated 
in the public primary and in private intermediate 
and high schools of Providence. After graduation 
he went into the drygoods business and continued 
about four years, and was then apprenticed to 
Charles P. Hartshorn, a prominent architect of 
Providence. He studied with Mr. Hartshorn three 
years, and then went to Boston where he served as 
draughtsman for a time in different architectural 
offices. In 1873 he returned to Providence and 
started business for himself, establishing his office 
alone, and continuing in that relation ever since. 
Mr. Colwell's professional skill and reputation are 
not Umited nor directed to any particular class 
of work or school of architecture. His work is 
scattered all over the state, and comprises business 
blocks, manufacturing buildings, of which the Ameri- 
can Electrical Works may serve as a good example, 
and churches, including the two Jewish synagogues 
in Providence and several small church edifices ; 
but his principal work has been in the designing 
and construction of dwellings, of which he has built 
nearly eight hundred in the city of Providence and 
elsewhere throughout Rhode Island. His designs 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



267 



are original, pleasing and practical, and his work is 
noted for its modern and pretentious results accom- 
plished at moderate and economical cost. Mr. 
Colwell lives in the house in which he was born, 
and outside of his family his life is thoroughly devoted 
to his profession. He is, however, an enthusiastic 
Republican in politics, and has attended every 
election-return meeting in Providence since the 
Fremont campaign,but has never sought nor accepted 
public office. He was married, February 25, 1874, 
to Miss Ida F. Horton, of Providence ; they have 
six children : Carrie L., Henry H., Wilmarth H., 
Jr., Chester R., Florence D. and Lillian H. Colwell. 




C, FRED CRAWFORD. 



ECCLESTON, Ai.vin Herbert, M. D., Provi- 
dence, was born in North Stonington, Conn., 
November 26, 1858, son of Latham Hull and Har- 
riet Elizabeth (Burdick) Eccleston. His paternal 
ancestry is English, county Cheshire, and his mater- 
nal ancestors, also English, were among the first 
settlers of Rhode Island. He received his early 
education in the public schools of his native town 
and at Hopkinton Academy, Ashaway, Rhode Island, 
entered the Albany Medical College and graduated 



in the class of 1880 with the degree of M. D. He 
commenced the practice of his profession in Rhode 
Island in the summer of 1880, and obtained an 
extensive and lucrative practice in Washington 
county. In 1892 he removed to Providence, where 
he has since practiced. During his residence in 
Washington county he was a member of the Town 
Council of Richmond, and Chairman of the School 




A. H. ECCLESTON, 

Committee for five years. In 1889 he was elected 
a member of the House of Representatives of the 
General Assembly and served two years. In 1890 
he was appointed by Governor Ladd a member of 
the State Board of Health. In 1892 he was com- 
missioned an Examining Surgeon for the United 
States. He is Surgeon of the New York, New 
Haven & Hartford Railroad, and is Major and 
Surgeon of the United Train of Artillery, Rhode 
Island Militia. He is a member of the Rhode 
Island Medical Society and of the Washington 
County Medical Society, and is a member of Charity 
Lodge, A. F. & A. M., Franklin Royal Arch 
Chapter, Narragansett Commandery, Providence 
Consistory Thirty-Second degree, Northern Juris- 
diction, also of Mechanics Lodge, I. O O. F., and 
Niantic Encampment. Dr. Eccleston is also a 
member of the Rhode Island Sons of the American 
Revolution. 



268 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



FISHER, George Russell, physician and sur- 
geon, was born in North Scituate, R. I., May 28, 
1852, the son of Charles Harris and Sophia Reming- 
ton (Smith) Fisher. His father was a surgeon, and 
at his death was Secretary of the State Board of 
Health, and for many years represented Scituate in 
the General Assembly. On his mother's side he is 
descended from the West family, one of whose 
members was Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island ; 
her grandfather was a soldier in the Revolutionary 
War. He received his early education in the com- 
mon schools and Lapham Institute, Scituate. He 
entered Brown University and graduated in the class 
of 1872. He adopted medicine as a profession and 
studied at Bellevue Hospital and at the Yale Med- 
ical school. He established himself as a physician 
in Scituate, where he was town physician from 1876 
to 1879. H^ ^^^ Assistant Surgeon General from 
1876 to 1881, and on May 6, 1895, ^^^ appointed 
Assistant Surgeon of the United Train of Artillery, 
He is a member of the Knights of Pythias, of Roger 
Williams Lodge, A. F. & A. M. of Centreville, R. I., 
and of the Order of United Workmen. He married, 
December 6, 1886, Miss Annie Wilkinson Hale; 
they have no children. 



of his brother, Thomas F., to partnership. The 
firm have built up an extensive business and have 
been connected with some of the largest building 
enterprises of Providence and vicinity. Among the 
large contracts they have executed may be men- 
tioned : Carpenter work on Manual Training School, 
Hodges Building, Champlin Block, Art Museum at 
Roger Williams Park, State Normal School, Home 
for Aged Men on Broad street, and Athletic Club 
building on Weybosset street ; carpenter and mason 
work on St. Joseph's Hospital, Joseph Banig'in's 
house and stable, also P. T. Banigan's house. East 



GILBANE, William, senior member of the firm 
of William Gilbane & Brother, carpenters and 
builders, Providence, was born in county Leitrim, 
Ireland, September 21, 1844, son of Thomas and 
Bridget (O'Brien) Gilbane. His father and mother 
were both natives of county Leitrim. They came 
to this country in 1845 ^-nd located at Limerock, in 
the town of Lincoln, R. I., where the father engaged 
in farming and also worked for the Harris Limerock 
Company. The family moved to Providence in 
June 1868. WiUiam Gilbane, the subject of this 
sketch, received his early education in the Limerock 
district school, working meanwhile at farming and 
for a time in the box shop of the Lonsdale Company 
at Lonsdale. In 1862 he came to Providence and 
apprenticed himself to learn the carpenters' trade 
with George A. Brown. While serving his appren- 
ticeship he attended the Providence Evening School, 
also drawing school, and took courses at the Bryant 
& Stratton Business College and the Rhode Island 
School of Design. In 1870 he went into business 
for himself as a carpenter and builder, and continued 
alone until 1883, when the present firm of William 
Gilbane & Brother was established by the admission 




WM GILBANE. 

and West Side high schools, and Holy Name Church 
on Camp street. Mr. Gilbane is a member of the 
Catholic Knights of America, also of the Brownson 
Lyceum Literary Society. In politics he is an Inde- 
pendent. He was married, February 17, 1870, to 
Annie Frances Martin ; they have six children : 
Annie Josephine, Mary Alice, William Henry, Jennie 
Ursula, Elizabeth Veronica and Helen Martha 
Gilbane. 



GILBANE, Thomas Francis, of William Gilbane 
& Brother, carpenters and builders, Providence, 
was born in Limerock, Lincoln, R. I., November 
5, 1854, son of Thomas and Bridget (O'Brien) 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



269 



Gilbane. His parents were born in the county of 
Leitrim, Ireland, and came to this country in 1845, 
locating at Limerock, where the father worked for 
the Harris Limerock Company and also at farming, 
until their removal to Providence, June 10, 1868. 
His early education was acquired in attendance at 
the Limerock district school and at evening school 
in Providence. Later he attended both day and 
evening commercial school at the Bryant & Stratton 
Business College in Providence, and also studied 
drawing at a school on Fountain street and for six 
winters in evening class at the Rhode Island School 
of Design. In June 1868 he went to work in 
the Allen Print Works in Providence, where he re- 
mained two years, and then worked for the Provi- 
dence Tool Company until in July 187 1 he entered 
upon an apprenticeship with his brother William to 
learn the carpenters' trade. In 1883 he became 




THOS. F. GILBANE. 

associated in partnership with his brother, under 
the firm name of William Gilbane & Brother, which 
relation has continued to the present time. The 
firm have built up a large business in their line, and 
besides their building and construction work, which 
is mentioned in greater detail in the preceding 
biographical sketch of William Gilbane, they oper- 
ate a large factory for getting out building fin- 
ish and material, and for general woodworking. 
Mr. Gilbane is a member of the Brownson Lyceum 



Literary Association, and is an Independent in 
politics. He was married, January 27, 1886, to 
Miss Mary Josephine McGuinness ; they have two 
children : Catherine Josephine and Miriam Attracta 
Gilbane. 




J. J. LACE. 



LANGMAID, George Batchelder, M. D., East 
Greenwich, was born in North Danville, Vt., 
September 5, 1848, son of Willard K. and Emily 
(Batchelder) Langmaid. He received his early 
education in the common schools, and at Barton 
(Vermont) Academy, from which he graduated at 
the age of twenty. Immediately following gradua- 
tion he commenced the study of medicine with Dr. 
Stokes of St. Johnsbury, Vt., where he remained for 
six months, and then went on a tour west as far as 
Colorado. Upon his return he resumed his study 
of medicine, under the preceptorship of the late 
Dr. Calvin Woodward of his native town, with whom 
he continued for a year, when the Doctor came to 
Boston and arranged for his pupil to enter the 
Boston University School of Medicine. Here he 
took a three-years course, and graduated with the 
class of 1877. Locating in Melrose, Mass., he 
practiced his profession in that town for nine years, 
removing in April 1886 to East Greenwich, where 
he took an entirely new field, and has continued in 
active practice to the present time. For the last 



270 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



three years he has been Surgeon of the Kentish 
Guards of East Greenwich. Dr. Langmaid is a 



3pS^^^'*'Mht 




GEO. B. LANGMAID. 



member of the Boston Homoeopathic Medical 
Society. In politics he is a Republican. 



MITCHELL, John Waite, M. D., Providence, 
was born in Norwich, Chenango county, N. Y., April 
6, 1848, son of John and Caroline D. (Foote) 
Mitchell. He is of old New England ancestry on 
both sides ; the Mitchells came originally from 
Scotland, and his grandfather Mitchell came to 
New York state from Connecticut j the Footes were 
also from Connecticut, and his maternal aricestor, 
Isaac Foote, was an officer in the Revolutionary 
army, and with Washington at Valley Forge, and 
later was a Judge in Chenango county, N. Y. John 
Waite Mitchell received his early education in the 
public schools and prepared for college at Williston 
Seminary, East Hampton, Mass., from which insti- 
tution he graduated in 1868. He then entered 
Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New York 
city, graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medi- 
cine in 187 1, and after graduation served for a time 
as Interne of the hospital, under Dr. James R. 
Wood and Dr. John J. Crane of New York as pre- 
ceptors. In October 1872 he began his career as a 
medical and surgical practitioner in Providence, 
and has continued in active practice ever since. 



Dr. Mitchell served as Attending Surgeon of the 
Rhode Island Hospital Dispensary in Providence 
from 1873 to 1875, was Visiting Physician to the 
Rhode Island Hospital from 1873 to 1882, and 
since the latter date has been Visiting Surgeon to 
that institution; is Consulting Physician to St. 
Joseph's Hospital, St. EHzabeth's Home and the 
Catholic Orphan Asylum ; and was one of the 
original incorporators of the Providence Lying-in 
Hospital, of which he has been Consulting Physi- 
cian and President of the Board of Trustees ever 
since. He became a member of the Providence 
Medical Association in 1886 and of the Rhode 
Island Medical Society in 1889, and is one of the 
most influential members of those organizations, 
frequently contributing valuable papers to both 
associations, as well as to various medical journals. 
In politics Dr. Mitchell is a Republican. He was 
married, April 15, 1875, to Miss Frances E. Mason, 
who died in 1876. In August 1878 he married 
Miss Lydia Pearce ; they have one child, John 
Pearce Mitchell. 




JOS. F. Mcdonough. 



THOMPSON, David Moulton, President and 
Treasurer of the Corliss Steam Engine Company, 
Providence, was born at Great Falls, in the town of 
Somersworth, N. H., April 10, 1839. He was the 
eldest of a family of four sons and three daughters, 




^^M 




MEN OF PROGRESS. 



271 



children of Joseph H. and Lydia B. (Moulton) 
Thompson. He was educated in the pubHc schools 
of his native town, and graduated from the high 
school at sixteen years of age. It was the earnest 
desire of his parents that he should enter college ; 
but he had formed other plans, and finally obtained 
their consent to a postponement of theirs for one or 
possibly two years. He had from early boyhood man- 
ifested a deep interest in machinery and mechanics. 
His father was both a frame and mule spinner, and 
operated under contract for many years the spinning 
of several mills owned by the Great Falls Manufac- 
turing Company. Thus exceptional opportunities 
were at hand to gratify his desire to learn the art of 
cotton manufacture. Very much of his time out of 
school hours and nearly all school vacations had 
been spent in the mills. At fourteen years he had 
engaged in all of the duties and operations required 
of the back-boys, cleaners, frame spinners, and the 
mule piecer, spinners and doffers ; while at sixteen 
he was regarded as a proficient operator of Smith 
and Mason mules. This early experience and 
training may be regarded as not only the foun- 
dation, but as a factor of great supplementary 
force, influencing in a large measure all subse- 
quent effort and the achievements of later years. 
Shortly after leaving school he went into the mills, 
in pursuance of a well-formed purpose to learn 
all of the operations of the several departments, 
to which he devoted nearly four years. The last 
ten months were spent in the bleachery and 
cloth-finishing departments. He then went to 
Boston, and served a regular apprenticeship to the 
trade of a carpenter and joiner. In i860 he 
returned to the mills, to engage in the mechanical 
departments. In the latter part of said year, he 
was engaged to go to Manville, R. I., where he 
started up and operated a room of self-acting 
mules. Several months later he accepted, of the 
same company, the position of master mechanic, in 
which he remained during the re-organization of 
the property. Hon. Jonathan Chace, ex-Senator of 
Rhode Island, was then Agent. In September 
1863 he removed to Whitinsville, Mass., and 
entered the employ of the Paul Whitin & Sons, sub- 
sequently the Whitin Machine Works, noted 
builders of cotton machinery, in which service he 
remained three years. In September 1866 he 
removed to Portland, Me., entered a copartnership 
with two former associates, and began business as 
carpenters and builders. One of the partners 
retired in a few months ; during the second year he 



purchased the interest of the remaining partner and 
continued the business alone. The third year he 
employed an average of one hundred and seventy- 
five carpenters, upon a variety of high-grade work, 
among which was a contract for the re-build- 
ing of the High Street Congregational Church 
(Rev. Dr. Fenn, pastor). A recognition such as the 
above, accorded a young man but twenty-nine years 
of age and a resident but two and a half years, was 
an honor of which he may justly have been proud. 
In September 1869 he was invited to remove to 
Boston and enter into partnership with the builder 
of whom he learned his trade (a man of large 
experience and considerable means) less than eleven 
years before. He accepted the proposal, and in 
January 1870 sold out his business in Portland. In 
July following, the terms of the copartnership were 
revised to enable him to open an office for the 
practice of architecture and engineering as a pro- 
fession, — a long cherished plan, in the prepara- 
tion for which years of earnest effort had been 
given. In July 1871 he was engaged as the archi- 
tect, engineer and builder for the Number Three 
Mill (designed for 120,000 spindles) at Manville, 
R. I., where eight years before he was employed as 
master mechanic. This engagement materially 
changed recently-formed plans, and he determined 
to unite the varied experiences of previous years and 
devote the future exclusively to mill engineering, 
a profession justly demanding a wide range of 
practical experience. It then appeared clear that 
the many departments of industrial work which had 
occupied the preceding sixteen years were but the 
links of a chain awaiting the process of welding, 
or as a series of minor paths all converging toward 
a central point or junction into a broad thorough- 
fare common to all. In September 1873 he dissolved 
his partnership in the builders' trade in Boston, and 
the following December removed his engineer- 
ing office from Boston to Providence. The business 
extended beyond local surroundings and gave 
promise of large operations in the future. In the 
spring of 1878 he visited Europe, where he devoted 
seven months to a careful study and observation of 
the methods employed in the manufacture and 
finish of cotton and woolen textile fabrics, as also 
to questions of engineering and mechanical con- 
struction, both in England and upon the conti- 
nent. In February 1879 he visited the South, 
devoting four months to extended travel and study 
of its social and physical conditions, with reference 
to its probable future in the manufacture of cotton. 



272 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



The predictions made upon his return have proved 
prophetic. A large business was opened up in the 
South. The operations of his office extended 
rapidly through the New England and Middle 
states, the Southwest and Canada. In 1883 the 
office employed thirty-seven draughtsmen ; twenty- 
seven mills were in process of treatment, of which 
eleven were new plants, and sixteen in course of 
re-organization. During the twelve years pre- 
ceding, more than twenty young men (many of 
them graduates of technological schools) had been 
trained through a three-years apprenticeship, a 
system which proved of great value. These young 
men are now employed in important work through 
the country, while several of them are occupying 
positions of large responsibility. The honor and 
pride of the training of such a corps of young men 
constitute some of his most pleasant memories. 
In the presence of such conditions as above recited, 
Mr. Thompson was induced in 1883 to give up his 
profession, and enter the service of Messrs. B. B. & 
R. Knight as General Manager of their mills, em- 
bracing all of the properties except the Hebron 
Manufacturing Company. The capacity of the mills 
in 1883 was one hundred and eighty thousand spin- 
dles. He continued in the management for a period 
of twelve years, during which the business extended 
to four hundred and twenty-one thousand spindles 
and twelve thousand six hundred looms, employing 
seven thousand persons. Their property comprised 
seventeen villages in Rhode Island and Massachu- 
setts, twenty-one mills, a bleachery and print works. 
The production of the bleachery was twenty-two 
tons of goods per day, and this large amount was 
but sixty per cent, of the product of the mills. 
Mr. Thompson resigned in May 1894, to take 
effect January i, 1895. In May 1894 the property 
of the CorHss Steam Engine Company was pur- 
chased of the heirs of the late George H. Corliss, 
and in the re-organization Mr. Thompson was 
elected President and Treasurer. His associates 
in the directory are men of great prominence, 
and widely known as practical and financial man- 
agers of many of the most prominent mechanical 
works in New England. In the face of an un- 
paralleled business depression the works of the 
CorHss Steam Engine Company resumed operations. 
The year 1895 witnessed a larger production and 
output than ever before in the history of the works. 
Mr. Thompson's management is recognized, in view 
of the times, to be remarkably successful. Many 
improvements have been made involving large 



expenditures. One of the most marked is doubtless 
his invention of a new type of boiler, patents for 
which have been issued to him in the United States, 
Canada, Great Britain, France and Belgium. It has 
been subjected to a large number of tests by disin- 
terested experts of high reputation, and the results 
obtained are recognized by all as phenomenal, 
exceeding anything heretofore known of which there 
is reliable and authentic record. It now appears 
only a question of a restoration of healthful business 
conditions, when this famous and world-renowned 
plant will take its position as in former times when 
under the direction of its illustrious founder. 
The responsibilities of large business interests have 
for many years been such as to preclude the accept- 
ance of political honors, which have been often 
tendered. He has taken a deep interest in the 
welfare of the city of Providence, where he has 
resided for the past twenty-four years, and is recog- 
nized as a factor of influence, and an earnest 
promoter of all just measures for public improve- 
ment. He was the projector of the Greenwich- 
street improvements and Elmwood-avenue boule- 
vard. His exposition of the above subject, coupled 
with a review of the progress and improvement 
of many modern cities, pubHshed in 1889, in a 
voluminous pamphlet, accomplished its purpose, re- 
moved the objections which had stood as barriers 
for years, and awakened a liberal spirit, the evi- 
dence of which is apparent in the extensive works 
since undertaken and now in progress. A second 
edition of three thousand copies was called for, five 
hundred of which were distributed largely at request 
for municipal and public libraries throughout the 
country. It was widely noticed by the press, 
notably by the Boston Herald in November 1889, 
and was pronounced by Frederick Law Olmsted 
(a gentleman of national reputation) as one of the 
best presentations of the subject that he had ever 
seen. In 1891 a joint resolution of the City 
Council had been presented to the General 
Assembly, asking for the enactment of a bill per- 
mitting the city of Providence to borrow four 
million dollars for public improvements. The 
natural spirit of conservatism, supplemented by 
local disturbance and difference of opinion among 
prominent leaders, stood as an inflexible barrier. 
At the request of the Ma)-or, Mr. Thompson engaged 
in the work at once. He called a meeting of the 
executive committee of the Advance Club. His 
urgent appeal secured the support of this committee 
(composed of fifteen prominent citizens), and laid 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



273 



the foundation of subsequent effort in harmonizing 
serious opposition. He then called a meeting of 
the club, and his address upon that occasion, en- 
titled " The Crisis," was unanimously endorsed. A 
thousand copies were ordered printed and dis- 
tributed to the City Council, and to leading 
and prominent citizens of influence in the city 
and state. A committee of prominent members 
of the club presented the address and resolu- 
tions to the General Assembly, and secured a 
prompt enactment of the important measure. 
Mr. Edwin P. Dawley, chief of the engineering 
department, Providence Division, of the New York, 
New Haven & Hartford ConsoHdated Railroad, 
says : " The change in terminal plans for the pur- 
pose of widening Francis street, from eighty feet as 
first determined to one hundred feet as now being 
executed, was due to Mr. Thompson's recommen- 
dation and earnest personal advocacy." The above 
indicates very briefly the deep interest he has taken 
in all measures intended to advance the material 
interests of his adopted city and state. He has for 
many years taken a deep interest in technical edu- 
cation, and has been especially desirous for the 
establishment of a technological school which 
should give prominence to the technics of the tex- 
tile industry. In company with several prominent 
citizens, a charter was secured for the purpose. 
Fourteen business organizations and Boards of 
Trade of the state were induced to co-operate. 
Five delegates from each wer? appointed to com- 
pose a general committee into whose hands the 
interests of this great work was placed. At the in- 
vitation of this committee, Mr. Thompson prepared 
an address which set forth clearly and at length the 
objects and purposes of the enterprise. The paper 
was published and distributed throughout the state, 
and awakened a deep interest; but owing to the 
serious financial conditions the work of the com- 
mittee has been suspended. He was the founder of 
the Advance Club, and its first President for three 
years, and is a member of many social and business 
organizations. He is a Free Mason, raised in 
Solomon's Temple Lodge in Saccarappa, Maine, in 
1867. The foregoing is but a brief outline of a 
busy life. Mr. Thompson has been an active and 
indefatigable worker, versatile in resources, of tre- 
mendous nervous power and energy. He has had a 
wide and remarkable experience of great diversity. 
He is widely known throughout the country, and to 
nearly all engaged in manufacturing interests. 
Commencing business life at a very early age, he 



has done forty years of work averaging not less than 
sixteen hours a day. As will be seen from the 
recent portrait herewith, he is yet young, full of 
vigor, in the prime of an active life, which gives 
promise of yet long years of great usefulness. Mr. 
Thompson was married, January 16, 1858, to Anna 
J. Hanners, of Great Falls, daughter of Thomas 
and Jane Hanners (both deceased) ; they have 
had two children: Lydia Ella (deceased), and 
Emma Frances, married to Daniel J. Sully, October 
I, 1885. Mr. and Mrs. Sully reside in Providence, 
and have three children : Anna Beth, Kenneth 
Moulton and Gladys Lee Sully. 



WEST, George J., I,awyer, Providence, was 
born in that city, in 1852, son of John and 
Catherine (Cavanagh) West, and died July 21, 




GEO. J. WEST, 

1896. He acquired his early education in the public 
schools, and graduated from Brown University in 
1876. From college he entered the Law School of 
Boston University. Graduating in 1878, he opened 
an office and commenced practice in Providence. 
Later, his brothers Ambrose E. and Thomas F. 
were associated with him. The former died in 1894. 
Mr. West early established a reputation as an advo- 



2 74 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



cate of superior ability, and especially in the depart- 
ment of criminal law he soon won a position and 
fame which placed him in the front rank of his pro- 
fession. At the time of his death, which unexpected 
and untoward event occurred in the midst of a 
brilliant career full of even greater future promise, 
he was universally recognized as the foremost crim- 
inal lawyer of Rhode Island, if not of New England, 
although his practice did not extend beyond the 
limits of his own state. His talents and abilities 
were not confined, however, to the criminal branch 
of his profession, as in all respects he was a persis- 
tent student, widely read and possessing an amazing 
fund of general information, an acute lawyer, and a 
brilliant and magnetic advocate. Before a jury, he 
had few equals and no superiors, and even among 
his competitors in the legal profession, it is the 
belief of many that he was without a peer in the 
art of fascinating and capturing the twelve men 
that are selected to render a decision in mat- 
ters of litigation. One of the first criminal trials 
in which Mr. West figured was that of the noto- 
rious "Spiker" Murphy, now serving a life term 
in the Rhode Island State Prison at Cranston. 
His opponent on the side of the State was Judge 
Horatio Rogers, then Attorney-General, and Judge 
Rogers asserted that a harder fight for the acquittal 
of a prisoner was never within his experience. The 
skill, ingenuity and forensic ability displayed by 
Mr. West in that case astonished members of the 
Bar, who until then were not aware of his mental 
stature or his grasp of his vocation. He stepped 
into celebrity at once, and since that memorable con- 
test has been regarded as the Abe Hummel of 
Rhode Island jurisprudence. Mr. West again 
came into prominence in his defence of Yankee 
Dan Sullivan, and was defeated in that case, only 
because Sullivan made a fatal admission, or stumble, 
on the witness stand. Mr. West's victories won in 
the trials of Ernest Whitaker and Dr. Hale are 
fresh in the recollections of the people of Rhode 
Island. In the latter case particularly, did his 
superb accomplishments and wonderful fertility of 
mind undergo a most telHng exemplification. The 
doctors on the side of the prosecution confessed 
that they never ran against so dangerous a cross- 
questioner, or one who seemed to know the medical 
books from Alpha to Omega as he did. In the 
civil departments of the courts also, Mr. West 
scored many notable triumphs. One of these was 
the famous Burnham case against the Railroad, 
in which he got four successive verdicts, for 



seventy-five hundred, eight thousand, eleven thou- 
sand, and twenty thousand, dollars respectively. 
After the first verdict, the Supreme Court granted 
the railroad new trials, and while preparing to raise 
the ad damnum to thirty thousand dollars, Mr. 
West agreed to a liberal settlement with the road. 
The cases growing out of the railroad accident at 
Lonsdale were also handled with exceptional 
cleverness by Mr. West, who established the point 
upon which all of those pieces of litigation turned. 
He was connected with the celebrated Wash- 
burn-Moen case, in which he was paid by Doc. 
Wilson a retainer that has rarely been equalled. 
He participated in the contest over the will of 
Judge Eli Aylsworth, and it was in a large measure 
due to his masterly efforts that the will was broken 
by the jury. Corporations came to consider him 
one of the most dangerous antagonists they could 
meet, learning to dread the appearance of his name 
on a writ, and it is within the knowledge of many 
attorneys that sooner than risk a battle before a 
jury with George J. West, they would gladly settle 
for a round sum. Mr. West's income from his 
practice was very large. He owned a number of 
pieces of valuable real estate, but never went into 
speculation in any other form, devoting his business 
Hfe almost wholly to his profession. As a lawyer 
he was an indefatigable laborer, toiling both night 
and day ; and perhaps quite as much to his assiduity 
with his law books and reports, as to his native 
quickness and ability, was due his many noteworthy 
achievements before the bar of justice. He could 
see into difficulties with a directness of perception 
and a thoroughness of comprehension that excited 
the admiration of his brother barristers. He was 
not given to deciding a question off hand, but bent 
to its consideration all of his energy and attainments, 
often working for days and weeks over a point he 
desired to emphasize, and then coming into court 
fortified with authority after authority and reason after 
reason until his opposing counsel began to think he 
was a perfect cyclopedia of legal information. He was 
eminently faithful to his clients, who always trusted 
him implicitly, and when he had laid down their 
cases they had the satisfaction of knowing that there 
was absolutely nothing more that could be done for 
them. In Mr. West's untimely removal by death, 
the bar of the state, and the city that was his home, 
have suffered an irreparable loss. He was closely 
in touch with the people in many ways, and was 
particularly serviceable to them in defending their 
rights against the real or fancied encroachments of 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



275 



corporations ; was one of the staunchest and 
most valuable friends of the public schools ; and 
was actively prominent in all matters relative 
to the fostering of Catholic institutions. He was a 
member of the School Board of Providence from 
1888 until his death, and in 1885-6 was a Repre- 
sentative in the Rhode Island General Assembly. 
In politics Mr. West was a Democrat, and had 
served as a member of the Democratic City and 
State Central committees. He was twice married, 
his first wife passing away a short time after their 
union. His second marriage was in 1881, to 
Miss Hyde, of Providence, by whom he had seven 
children. He was very fond of his home and 
family, and although a member of many societies of 
a social and literary character, he devoted a large 
share of his time to the home circle. Mr. West 
died abroad, whither he had gone with his family on 
a tour of pleasure and health-recuperation, the 
event taking place in Aughnacloy, Ireland, from the 
effects of a cold contracted during a period of cold 
and stormy weather in crossing the Isrih sea. His 
remains were brought home on the steamship 
Servia, which also brought the Ancient and Hon- 
orable Artillery Company of Boston, who had been 
his fellow-passengers on the same steamer a few 
weeks before. An escort of honor, detailed by the 
city government and various societies of Providence, 
accompanied the body from Boston to that city, 
where two days latter the funeral was held in the 
Cathedral, attended by an immense concourse of 
neighbors, business and professional acquaintances, 
representatives of the Bench and the Bar, the city 
and state governments, various societies, and citi- 
zens generally, assembled to pay their tributes of 
reverence and sorrow to the memory of the departed 
lawyer, their sincere friend and conscientious 
advocate. 

WHEATON, Francis Levison, M. D., of Provi- 
dence, was born in Providence October 27, 1804, 
son of Dr. Levi and Martha (Burrill) Wheaton, and 
died January 20, 1896. His early education was 
acquired in the public schools of his native city, 
and his studies for his profession included attend- 
ance at the Medical School of Brown University, 
and lectures in Boston. He received a further val- 
uable training as assistant to his brother. Dr. Walter 
Wheaton, Surgeon of the Second Regiment U. S. 
A., from the age of seventeen to twenty, and in 
1824 he accompanied the regiment under command 
of Colonel Brady from Sackett's Harbor to Lake 



Superior. Returning to Providence in that year he 
established himself as a physician and surgeon, and 
remained until May 1836, when he accepted an in- 
vitation to go to Pomfret, Conn., to take the place 
of Dr. Hubbard, physician and surgeon of that 
town. He returned to Providence in 1840 and 
practiced his profession there, excepting during his 
intervals of military service, until his retirement 
from age and failing health a few years since. 
During the Mexican War he accepted the position 
of Surgeon to the Ninth Regiment, U. S. A., and 
participated in the campaigns which resulted in the 
capture of the City of Mexico by General Scott. 
During the war of the Rebellion he served as Sur- 
geon to the First and Second Regiments, Rhode 
Island Volunteers. After the war he was appointed 
Surgeon-General of Rhode Island, and held that 
office for a number of years. Dr. Wheaton was a 
member of the Rhode Island Medical Society and 
the Providence Medical Association. He was mar- 
ried, August 3, 1828, to Miss Amelia Smith Burrill; 
they had four children : George Burrill, Frank, 
WiUiam Levi and Henry Seth Wheaton. The 
second son is now Brigadier-General Frank 
Wheaton, United States Army. 



WILLARD, Charles Wells, Commissioner of 
Inland Fisheries for the state of Rhode Island, was 
born in Hartford, Conn., January 24, 1853, son 
of William Francis and Frances Griswold (Wells) 
Willard. He is descended on both sides in a 
direct line from one of the Colonial Governors of 
Connecticut — the seventh generation on the Willard 
side and the eighth on the Wells side from Governor 
Thomas Wells, who was born in England in 1570, and 
landed at Salem, Mass., June 24, 1629, five years 
before Simeon Willard, the paternal progenitor of 
Charles W., came to America ; he died at Wethers- 
field, Conn., and was one of the wealthiest and most 
prominent men of his time. Simeon Willard, son 
of Richard Willard of Kent, England, came over in 
1634. Soon after his arrival he and his brother-in- 
law Captain Davis established themselves in Cam- 
bridge, where they owned adjoining lands on the 
Brighton side of the Charles River. Major Willard, 
as he afterwards became known, was one of the 
leaders in founding the town of Concord, Mass., on 
the site of the Indian village of Musketoguid. From 
him the subject of this sketch is descended. He 
was educated in the public and high schools of 
Hartford, and adopted a mercantile career. In 



276 



MEN OF PROGRESS. 



1878 he succeeded J. H. Porter, at Westerly, in the 
hardware trade, in the same building, 22-24 High 
street, in which he now occupies two stores and 
four floors for the requirements of his extensive 
business. Mr. Willard has served as Rhode Island 




CHAS. W, WILLARD. 

Commissioner of Inland Fisheries since 1894. He 
has always held aloof from accepting political or 
town offices, as interfering with his active business 
life, and he was led to accept the office of Fish 
Commissioner only by the inducements of his ex- 
treme love of fishing and his fondness for the study 
of the habits and culture of fishes. He is a char- 
ter member and was prominent in the organization 
of the Westerly Business Men's Association, a strong 



body of practical business men occupying the entire 
second floor of the Porter & Loveland Building. 
He is also a Director in the Mechanics Savings 
Bank, and Vice-President of the Local Board of the 
Connecticut Savings Society. He is prominent in 
Masonry, being Worshipful Master of Franklin 
Lodge of Westerly, and Past Eminent Commander 
of Narragansett Commandery Knights Templar. 
He has also served since 1893 as a Trustee of Bowen 
Lodge Knights of Pythias. Mr. Willard was married, 
November 25, 1880, to Miss Minnie Porter of 
Westerly; they have a daughter : Grace Porter 
Willard. 




W. H. COLWELL. 
For Sketch see page 266. 



ADDENDA AND ERRATA. 



Arms, Charles J. Page 264. Eiographical data not furnished. 

Baker, Darius. Page 84. In second line, second column, in place of "1875" 

read " 1879 " • " He served as Trial Justice of the city from 1879 to 1886." 

Ballou, H. C. Page 225. Thirteenth line, first column, referring to nomination 

for Alderman : Lacked twenty-five votes of election. 

Barry, VV. F., M. D. Page 87. Was married, April 14, 1896, to Elizabeth Agnes 

Conley, daughter of P. J. Conley, the late rubber manufacturer. Was appointed. 
May 8, 1896, Assistant Surgeon to the Second Regiment Infantry, Rhode Island 
Militia, with rank of First Lieutenant. 

Barstow, George E. Page 7. Is also a member of the American Academy of Polit- 
ical and Social Science, Philadelphia. In lines six and seven, second column, for 
" Miss Drew Symonds " read " Clara Drew Symonds." 

BucKLiN, E. C. Page 8. In second line of sketch, in place of " Woonsocket " read 

"Providence " : "Treasurer of the Harris Manufacturing Company, Providence." 

CoLWELL, W. H. Page 266. Portrait, on page 276, furnished too late for insertion 

with sketch. 

Crawford, C. Fred. Page 267. Born in Pawtucket, Mass., December 27, 1844. 

ninth child of George and Hannah Crawford ; attended the public schools until the 
age of eighteen : started as "reaming boy" in the spool factory of R. & G. Cush- 
man ; passed through all the various departments, learning the details of each ; 
entered the ofifice as shipping clerk, was made book-keeper and clerk after the death 
of Mr. Phillips, one of the partners, and soon after was admitted to the firm under 
the name of Atwood, Crawford & Co. The business continued to increase, was 
incorporated under the style of the Atwood-Crawford Company, of which Mr. Craw- 
ford is a member of the Board of Directors, and is now one of the largest spool- 
manufacturing establishments in New England. He has occupied various public 
positions from Fire Ward to Assemblyman ; was Secretary of the Central Falls Fire 
District 1878-80, declining are-election; for years was Clerk and afterwards was 
Moderator of the voting district of Central Falls in the town of Lincoln ; served in 
the General Assembly 1887-8 as Representative from Lincoln ; was elected Town 
Clerk of Lincoln in 1891 ; is now City Clerk of Central Falls, Clerk of the Probate 
Court, Chairman of the Republican City Committee, Treasurer of the Republican 
State League and the Lincoln Republican Association, and is identified with various 
fraternal organizations. He was Foreman of the Pacific Steam Fire-Engine Com- 
pany for two years, and is now President of the Central Falls Veteran Firemen's 
Association ; is an associate member of the Grand Army, and belongs to the Central 
Falls Congregational Church, which he has served as Sunday School Librarian con- 
tinuously for more than thirty-three years. Mr. Crawford was married to Mattie M. 
Horton, of Smithfield, R. I.; they have two children: Frederick S., born July 13, 
1869, and C Lois, born February 25, 1879. — [Condensed from data furnished after 
foregoing pages were printed. 

Jackson, F. H. Page 44. In twenty-seventh hne of sketch, in place of " 1856" 

read " 1866 " : " In 1866 he entered the law office," etc. 

Lace, Dr. J. J. Page 269. Biographical data not furnished. 



278 ADDENDA AND ERRATA. 

Larry, Reverend John Hale. Page 116. In sixteenth line of sketcli, "Little 

Falls, N. H.," should read "Little Falls, Maine." On page 117, first column, 
eighth line, " Smytherville " should read " Scytheville." 

Lewis, Nathan B, Page 117. In first line of sketch, read "Barber" for "Bar- 
bour": "Lewis, Nathan Barber." Page 118, forty- fourth line, first column, in 
place of "1887" read "18S6": "was a member of the School Committee of 
Exeter from June 1866 to June 1886." 

McDoNOUGH, Rev. Jos. F. Page 270. Biographical data not furnished. 

Nugent, Charles F. Page 53. In second line of sketch, in place of " 1869 " read 

"1859": "born in Lynn, Mass., November 15, 1859." Page 54, in last line of 
sketch, for " Tinker " read " Tinkler " : " He married, January 12, 1894, Miss Anny 
E. Tinkler." 

Perkins, Jay. Page 55. Is also a member of the American Medical Association. 

Pond, Daniel B. Page 44. Died suddenly on September 9, 1896. Had just been 

appointed by Governor Lippitt as one of the Rhode Island Commissioners to the 
Nashville, Tennessee, Exposition. 

Potter, Dexter B. Page 61. In second line of sketch, after "son of" add 

"Reverend " : "Son of Reverend Jeremiah and Mary Ann (Salisbury) Potter." 

Senior, D. W. Page 71. Removed to Medway, Massachusetts. 

Thompson, Henry M. Page 144. In third hne, first column, "1871" should read 

"1891": "was elected Clerk of the Supreme Court in May 1891." 

Tiepke, Henry E. Page 141. Was re-elected Mayor for 1895-6. 

Walker, General William R. Page 76. Mrs. Walker died February 21, 1895. 

Webster, George E. Page 217. Date of marriage should be "1864" — not 

"1884": "was married February 8, 1864." 

West, George J. Page 273. Was a member of the Providence City Council, 1895-6. 

Was also President of Democratic State Central Committee, 1883-4. 

Williams, Alfred M. Page 79. Died at Besse Terre, St. Kitts, West Indies, 

March 9, 1896. 



INDEX. 



Aldrich, Nelson W 263 

Allen, Crawford, Jr 153 

Allen, E. R i 

Almy, Herbert 81 

AiMES, Geo. H 81 

Andrews, E. B . 2 

Anthony, Chas. W 82 

Anthony F. H 221 

Anthony, James 154 

Arms, Charles J. (portrait only) 264 

Arnold, John N. 2 

Arnold, Olnev 221 

Arnold, Warren O 83 

Atwood, H. C 154 

Babbitt, Edward S 157 

Babcock, Albert S 83 

Babcock, J. A 155 

Bailey, Geo. C 3 

Baker, Benj. ... 223 

Baker, Darius 83 

Ballou, B. a J 3 

Ballou, CO . 158 

Ballou, Dan'l R. . . 84 

Ballou, H. C 224 

Ballou, L. W 8 

Barker, A. A 86 

Barker, Henry R 158 

Barker, William 12 

Barnaey, Abner J 159 

Barnard, Chas. A 4 

Barney, W. H 11 

Barnefield, Thomas P 86 

Barrows, Edwin 5 

Barry, William F 87 

Barstow, Amos C 13 

Barstow, Geo. E 7 

Barton, N. B 225 

Bates, William Lincoln 225 

B.^xter, John J 87 

Beane, Geo. F. A 88 

Bedlow, Henry 226 



Bentley, B. Courtland 227 

Bixby, M. H 160 

Blodgett, W. W. (sketch only) 264 

Bosworth, B. M - 162 

Bourn, Augustus O , 1 63 

BOWEN, WiM. H 9 

Boyle, P. J , 164 

Brice, Harry B 227 

Brown, E. A 7 

Brown, D. Russell 5 

Brown, H. Martin 6 

Brown, Will E 164 

Bruce, Henry J 89 

BUCKLIN, E. C 8 

Budlong, J. C 165 

BuFFUM, W. P ID 

Burbank, Robert W 89 

Cady, Geo. W 90 

Cady, Philo V 91 

Campbell, F. A. ....... 265 

Campbell, J. P 167 

Campbell, John H. (sketch only) 266 

Canfield, Herman 228 

Capwell, Remington P 91 

Carpenter, Alva 92 

Carpenter, P. B 17 

Carr, George W 14 

Carroll, Hugh J 18 

Chagnon, Chas. E 18 

Champlin, Christopher E 92 

Champlin, John Carder 168 

Chapin, Charles V. (sketch only) 265 

Child, B. H 16 

Clancy, Wm. P 1 69 

Clark, Henry C 93 

Clarke, Chas. K 94 

Clarke, E. P 169 

Coggeshall, C. H 17 

Cole, Jos. E 170 

Colt, Sam'l P 94 

Colwell, Francis 15 



28o 



INDEX. 



COLWELL, W. H. (portrait 276) 

CoMSTOCK, Richard B 

CONGDON, \\m. W 

CoNLEY, John E 

CoNLEY, Martin J 

Cook, S. P 

Cooper, Robert W 

Cotton, Joseph P 

COVELL, W. H 

CoYLE, James 

CoYLE, Philip H 

Crafts, A. B 

Crawford, C. Fred (sketch in addenda) 

Crooker, George H 

Crumb, Alexander G 



Davis, F. J 

Davis, John W. . . 

Davis, W. D 

Douglas, S. T. . . , 
Douglas, W. W. . 
Doyle, Thos. A. . . 

Dovi'NES, L. T 

Drown, Benjamin, 
Dubois, Edward C. 
Dubois, H. J. C. . . . 
DuRFEE, Thomas . . 



Eames, B. T 

Earle, Chas. H 

Eastman, Jas. H. . . . 
Eccleston, a. H , . . . 

EcROYD, Henry 

Eddy, Charles D. . . 

Ely, J. C 

Ely, J. W. C 

Everson, Edward W. 



Farnsworth, John P 

Farrally, Wm. H . 

Farrell, J. T 

Fisher, Geo. Russell (sketch only) 

FoLSOM, Fred W 

FoLSOM, John N , 

Foster, Samuel 

Fowler, Geo. H 

Francis, E. Charles 

Freeman, E. L 

Fuller, Myron H. (sketch only) . . . 



Gardiner, A. B. 
Gardiner, J. B. 
Garvin, L. F. C. 



PAGE 
266 

95 
95 
96 

19 

96 

230 

97 
98 
20 
20 
267 

99 
100 

171 

100 

21 

23 

24 

172 

22 

lOI 

102 
23 

25 

28 
103 

27 

267 

26 
26 

30 

28 
,231 

103 

31 
231 

268 

104 

173 
30 

173 
32 

174 



233 
233 

34 



PAGE 

George, Chas. H 33 

GiLEANE, Thomas F 268 

GiLBANE, William 268 

GoFF, Isaac L 33 

GoFF, Lyman B 234 

Gorman, Charles E 235 

Gorton, William A 104 

Granger, W. S 176 

Grant, Geo. H 176 

Grant, Robert Alex 105 

Greene, Benj 236 

Greene, Nath'l 236 

Grinnell, Frederick 106 

Hall, Nelson Read 107 

Hall, William H 177 

Haller, J. Frederick 237 

Hanaford, James B 239 

Harkins, Matthew 108 

Harkness, Albert 178 

Harris, Geo. A 35 

Harris, Wm. A. . . . . 108 

Harson, M. J 179 

Hasbrouck, Sayer 180 

Hayes, Charles no 

Hayward, William S 109 

Hawes, Edward C 181 

Heathcote, John 239 

Hemenway, H. L 36 

Heydon, Henry D 36 

Higbee, E. W 42 

Hill, Frank 37 

Hill, L. S 38 

Hill, Thos. J 240 

Holbrook, Albert 39 

Holden, Frank E 241 

Hollen, Jas. H 1 1 1 

HoRTON, Horace F 38 

Horton, J. W 42 

Howard, Henry 182 

Howard, Hiram 39 

Hunt, Simeon 242 

Jackson, C. A 43 

Jackson, F. H 44 

Jacoby, D. P. a Ill 

Jenckes, John 243 

Jones, Augustine 45 

Jordan, Jules 182 

JosLiN, Henry V. A 112 

Kef.ne, George F 113 

Kelliher, Michael W 113 



INDEX. 



281 



PAGE 

Kendrick, John E 47 

Kenney, W. F 46 

Kenyon, Geo. H 244 

Kimball, H. W 114 

Kimball, James M 114 

KiNNERNEY, H. F 1 84 

Knapp, Albert M 1 85 

Knight, B. B 186 

Knight, Robert 187 

Lace, J. J. (portrait only) 269 

Ladd, Frank F , 115 

Ladd, Herbert W 188 

Ladd, John Westgate 115 

Landers, A. C 50 

Langmaid, Geo. B 269 

Langstaff, Alfred M 48 

Lapham, B. N 50 

Lapham, Oscar 189 

Larry, John Hale ; 116 

Latham, Jos. A 49 

Leach, Geo 190 

Leaviit, Edward C iqo 

Lee, Thomas Z 191 

Legris, M. J. E 47 

Lewis, James N 191 

Lewis, Nathan B 117 

Lewis, Sam. W 118 

Lincoln, L. C 192 

I^ippitt, R. Lincoln 119 

Littlefield, Nathan W 193 

Lynch, J. E 194 

McCarthy, Patrick J 121 

McCloy, John A 245 

McDonough, Jos. F. (portrait only) 270 

McGuiNNESS, E. D 194 

Mackaye, H. G 120 

McMurrough, Thomas 121 

Martin, Joseph W 119 

Mason, A. Livingston 195 

Mason, Robert A 196 

Mason, Robert D 52 

Mathewson, Almy 244 

Mathieu, J. E. V 197 

Matteson, Charles 198 

Metcalf, Harold 51 

Miller, Augustus S 198 

Miller, Horace G 246 

Mitchell, John W. (sketch only) 270 

MoFFiT, Godfrey 123 

MoiES, Chas. P 122 

Morrow, Robert. . 51 



PAGE 

Mowry, E. C 123 

Munroe, Wm. C 247 

Newell, Timothy 52 

Neylan, D. J . . . 199 

Nickerson, Asa H 124 

Nicholson, S. M 200 

Noyes, Rob't F 200 

Nugent, Chas. F 53 

O'Leary, Chas 201 

Olney, Frank F 247 

O' Reilly, Francis L 54 

Owen, Franklin P 202 

Palmer, Wm. H 124 

Pease, L. B 248 

Peck, George B 249 

Peck, Samuel L 125 

Peckham, Chas. H 250 

Peckham, Thos. C. 126 

Peirce, a. C 59 

Peirce, J. L 59 

Peirce, W. C 57 

Pendleton, J. M 203 

Perkins, Jay 54 

Perry, John E 251 

Perry, Oliver H 203 

Pettis, Geo. H 204 

Phillips, E. F 58 

Pitman, T. T 57 

Pond, Daniel B 55 

Potter, Albert 60 

Potter, Dexter B 61 

PowE, Darius L 205 

Powel, John Hare 252 

Price, Walter 126 

Randall, Reuben G 206 

Ray, David S 206 

Read, Byron 207 

Read, Harwood E 127 

Reed, Robert G 208 

Read, Walter A 62 

Reeves, D. W 63 

Remington, Henry A 209 

Remington, J. A 128 

Rich, Wm. G 61 

Ripley, James M 210 

Roberts, John H 65 

Robinson, R. R 64 

Rockwell, E. H 210 

Roelker, W. G 128 



282 



INDEX. 



Sack, A, Albert 129 

Sackexx, F, M 130 

San Souci, J. O 131 

Sawin, Isaac W 73 

Sayles, a. L 132 

Sayles, F. C, .. . , 211 

Sayles, W. F , , , 253 

Seabury, T. Mumford 69 

Senior, D, W. . , , , 71 

Sheahan, Dennis H 212 

Shedd, J. Herbert 213 

Sheffield, W. P., Jr 70 

Shepard, John, Jr 132 

Shove,. Isaac 133 

Simmons, George W 133 

Slater, ,A.. B 134 

Smith, Albert W 214 

Smith, C. S 66 

Smith, F. B 65 

Smith, Irving M 134 

Smith, R. Morton 136 

Smith, T., J 136 

Sprague, Albert. G 66 

Sprague, N. B , 71 

Stearns, H. A. ..,.., 137 

Stevens, Danij;l , 138 

Stevens, G. S 69 

Stimson, E. P , 139 

Stiness, J. H 72 

Stone, W. H 140 

Studley, John E. .- 68 

Taft, Royal C 73 

Tallman, B 215 

Tanguay, J. B. A. .... 75 

Tank, John T 74 

Tarbox, Otho 141 

Thompson, D. M 270 

Tiepke, Henry E , 141 

Tilunghast, F. W 143 

Tillinghast, James 215 

Tillinghast, p. E. . . , 144 



Tingley, Frank F 254 

Thayer, Ehilo E 140 

Thompson, Henry M 142 

TuRCK, Joseph A 216 

Utter, Geo H. . 145 

Vernon, Geo. E 145 

ViALL, Nelson. 146 

Walker, W. R .... 76 

Ward, A . H. . . 77 

Wardwell, W. T. C 78 

Watson, Arthur H 255 

Webster, Geo. E 217 

Weeden, Chas. E 147 

Westcott', Amasa S 262 

West, Geo. J 273 

West, Thos. F 152 

Wetmore, Geo. Peabody 256 

Wheaton, F. L. (sketch only) 275 

White, Chas. J 217 

White, H. C ". 148 

Whipple, Wm. L 147 

Whitten, W. W 218 

Wiggin, Oliver C 149 

Wilbour, I.e.. . . 219 

Wilcox, Geo. D 77 

Wilcox, Robert 257 

Wilkinson, George . 258 

Willard, Chas. W 275 

Williams, Alfred M 79 

Williams, H. N 78 

Williams, W. Fred 150 

Wilson, W. E 150 

WiNSOR, John 80 

Woods, J. C. B 259 

Work, Godfrey 219 

Wyman, J. C '.'. 151 

Young,. Arthur. 262 



Addenda and Errata 277 



